Buying a Lie
by PossumSoul
Summary: 'She's never mentioned the name Richard Castle, and no one's ever asked. She's kept their past as far away from here as she can manage. That burgundy pillow sitting on her bed is about as much as she will allow herself. Some nights, it's all she deserves, others it's all she can get. But most nights, it's all she will allow.' Post Watershed AU (5x24) *COMPLETE*
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Another installment in my series of story prompts that have been beaten to death, I present a take on post-Watershed. I never did like the way the writers handled this, so I'm going to give you guys a different take on it. Hope you guys enjoy, let me know what you think. :)**

* * *

She's being pulled out of sleep… again. This is the third time tonight, and she's getting irritated with everything but herself; at the pillow beneath her head for being too lumpy, at the blanket for being too tangled up in her legs, at the sheets for being too loose around the mattress, at the mattress for being too hard.

She unclenches the pillow viced in her arms and lifts her head to check the time, seeing it's still well before she would be woken up by her alarm, set for 6:45. Annoyed, she groans and lets her head fall back to the pillow, pulling her third pillow to her chest again. She closes her eyes again, knowing it won't do any good, but is being persistent nonetheless.

It's no use. She's awake. She scoffs in the darkness, kicks off the comforter and stands up. She's still tired, but she just can't sleep. Padding her way into her bathroom, she lethargically pulls open the medicine cabinet and grabs the small, orange prescription bottle in the middle, hesitating for a moment before she pulls it off the shelf. These haven't been working.

But she can't think of anything else, because she's tried everything else.

She gives in and pulls it forward, her tenseness relaxing into more annoyance as she feels the bottle's emptiness. She slaps the bottle down to the counter beside the sink and hangs her head. These haven't even been working, all they've done is make her tired. Which, if you think about it, is what they're supposed to do, but she doesn't need to be tired.

She needs to sleep.

She flicks the vanity closed on her way out of the bathroom, leaving the prescription bottle on the counter of her kitchen on her way in to remind herself to get it refilled. It's still dark out, and cold. She has the heat turned up though, hoping that it would help her sleep, to no avail. Staving off the cold is secondary to having the heat above 80 degrees. She clicks on just one light in her dark apartment, just enough to go about starting the coffee pot.

She hasn't used the alarm setting on her coffee maker since she moved here. She always manages to wake up before it starts. She doesn't even bother setting it anymore. She just waits in the darkness, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, staring off into space as she leans against the counter, not thinking. She finds herself doing that a lot, more and more as the days go on. She'll probably end up going in early again today, she still has some work left over from yesterday.

Even though she went in early yesterday also… and stayed late. She was one of the last ones out last night. She shakes her head with a roll of her eyes and pulls open her fridge, seeing a depressing sight. Every time she opens her fridge, she's just reminded how much time she has to actually cook her meals.

None.

Just a few cartons of Chinese food that are sure to be too old to stand to swallow, a pizza box with just a few slices left, a few assorted pieces of fruit and vegetables in the crisper, bought only to reassure herself that she was still a healthy eater. She's only looking in here because she knows she needs the calories.

After pulling out a Granny Smith apple from one of the drawers and a knife, she's just in time to hear the coffee finish. She makes her way over to the cupboard, pulling out her navy blue mug and filling it up, adding in her regular amount of cream and sugar. She cautiously takes a sip, grimacing heavily as it goes down. If she had the nerve… or the heart, she'd just call him and ask him how he makes it. She can't even enjoy a cup of coffee anymore.

She takes it as it comes, as with everything lately, and eats her apple slowly, unappealingly sipping her coffee in a recliner in the corner of her apartment, legs tucked up into herself. After another silent ten minutes, she finishes and stands up, depositing her mug by the coffee pot before making her way down the hall and into her bedroom again, pulling off her flannel pajamas on her way and tossing them on top of her hamper.

After putting on a pair of leggings, a long sleeved shirt and hoodie, she ties her hair back and slips into her running shoes. Running is the one thing she still does that keeps her at a reasonable level of normal. But sitting on her bed, she waits, staring at the carpet in the dim light of her bedside lamp. She lets out a deep breath through her nose and looks over to her pillows, grabbing the one laying adjacent to the others.

The deep burgundy one.

She scrunches the fabric in her hands before putting it against her chest, putting her arms around it and hugging it to her like a life preserver… which isn't too far off as it is. Her eyes drift shut as she takes a long whiff of the pillow, burying her nose deeper into it the more air she takes in. At this point, it's more sentimental. His scent is long gone from it anyway. But... it's still his.

She can't summon the warm electricity that would crawl like a spider up her spine when he would touch her, anymore. After deciding that it was too painful the first few months, she forced herself not to. But now it's just a dull ache, but still, it hurts just as much. She thought it would stop hurting, maybe not this soon, but that it would stop eventually.

That day still hasn't come, and is getting more and more out of reach with every single one that passes by. Her apartment suddenly feels as if it's going to swallow her whole. She gently soothes over the wrinkles in the pillow and sets it back down against the others and quickly makes her way out the door, grabbing her phone on her way out. The cold air against her skin feels nice, brisk as she starts to stretch out her muscles before beginning her morning run.

She runs a little faster this morning than most, pushing herself harder against the winter air. She runs her way into the city, just a mile or two away from her apartment, making it to a shopping area just as the sky turns a shade of deep blue just before the sun starts to come up. She stops at a crossing, jogging in place as she checks traffic and running her way across the four lane street to loop back around to her apartment.

As she turns back down the street to take the next street to circle back around, she makes it to the end of the block before she looks up and feels her heart seize up. She stops dead, her legs feeling like weighted gelatin as she takes the last few steps toward the window display of the small book store she's visited on a few occasions.

Her throat squeezes shut as she reaches up, putting shaky fingers against the glass, wanting to touch his image, nothing more than a large cardboard cutout display. It's a newer one, the picture they used isn't the one she's used to. His hair is a bit longer, and his eyes… his eyes are the most heartbreaking thing. She knows his eyes. Up until six months ago, his eyes were like her lighthouse, guiding her through the thick fog that was her life. The twinkle that would shine when he smiled could make anyone smile, but the only person that ever mattered was her. But now… staring at this advertisement in the window of a small book store in DC, that light isn't there. His smile is much softer, almost like he's not smiling at all here.

And she knows the smile he uses to promote himself. This isn't it. It's almost like he's saying to everyone that looks at this that there's nothing to be proud of, nothing of any worth to be found. It all hits her in one tidal wave of emotions, epicentering from her chest, quaking through her veins in the worst few seconds since last she saw him.

Tears in his eyes just before his back turned to her and practically ran off, while she stood there, doing nothing more than letting him.

Her burning eyes find the date, and sees that he's due here at the end of the week for a book signing, with a reading beginning at noon. She lets out a heavy huff of air and closes her mouth, pressing her palm down to the glass and closing her eyes. After a long moment, she lets her hand fall down to her side and draws in a long breath to steady herself, refusing to take another look at his image. As she pushes forward, running a little slower, she angrily shoves it all down.

They were just too different. They tried to make it work, and it didn't. That's that.

She'll just have to make sure she's too busy to notice his presence in DC. She probably will be, with or without her consent anyway.

She quickly jogs back to her apartment, feeling no more at home than the day she moved in and goes to the fridge to open a bottle of water. She doesn't know why she does this to herself, indulge in memories of her past that she knows will only end up hurting her. She's moved on, and knowing him, so has he. He's clearly not at the Twelfth anymore. He hasn't done a book signing tour outside of Manhattan in years, not since he started following her.

He clearly moved on with his life, just as she did.

These thoughts seem to cement her commitment to her six month long decision, stamping out any doubt she had that she may have taken the wrong road… temporarily, at least.

No… if he can move on within six months, so can she. She has her work, anyway. It's not too early to go in and get a head start. She needs to start going over the notes from yesterday's Senate Intel Hearing anyway, and has a briefing at ten. Word is she's at the top of the list to head up the team set to investigate that tech that went missing off the coast of Japan.

At least that would mean not having a choice in not being able to see her ex again.

She lets out a long sigh as she moves about her apartment, getting dressed in her regulatory outfit; black slacks, blazer, and a white blouse. She puts on just a bit more make-up this morning to try and hide the fact she only got a few hours of sleep, and a fitful few hours at that. Turning off her lights, taking a sip of her coffee again before shaking away her gag reflex and pouring it out, she heads out the door.

She's one of the first ones in the office that morning, coming up to her desk in the splay of identical desks lined up in a wide space with fluorescent lights buzzing above her. She drops her bag with a thud next to her chair and tiredly pulls out her chair, sitting down heavily. The memory of his cardboard cutout flashes in her mind for a brief second, which forces her to stop zoning out and pull out the file she had left off of the night before.

It's an hour and a half later that her assigned partner comes in, setting her things at her desk across from her. "Morning, Beckett." She says, her usual stern chipperness.

"Morning, McCord." Beckett says, the first words she says of the day, feeling scratchy as they leave her throat.

McCord sits down in her chair, pulling a stack of papers out of her bag and turning on her computer at the same time. "You look tired."

Beckett flashes a sad, heavy smile and twirls her zebra pen between her fingers. "I just didn't get much sleep last night is all. I got out of here kind of late." She isn't entirely lying. She did get out of here late last night, and she didn't get hardly any sleep last night… or the night before… and is still coming down from those useless sleeping pills she's been taking.

She really needs to stop taking those. They haven't been doing anything for her anyway.

The morning goes on slowly as Beckett focuses all her brain power on her work, as she usually does. It's another twenty minutes before the AG's office starts to fill up with its usual occupants, making it abuzz with noise. "Hey," Beckett calls over to McCord, who's staring intently at her computer screen, "have you heard anything about that overseas assignment to Japan?"

She's asking in hopes that she's at least on the team. A means to get away from the guilty pleasure that would be at least looking through the window of his book signing. "Nothing official yet, but the word is that they're handing it over to Japanese Intelligence."

Feeling let down, she slowly nods her head and clicks her pen, continuing to bury herself in her work again.

"Why?" McCord asks, stopping what she's doing looking across her desk to Beckett.

She lifts a dismissive hand and flashes a feigned smile. "It's nothing."

McCord knows nothing about her past, the personal parts anyway. She's never mentioned the name Richard Castle, and no one's ever asked. She's kept their past as far away from here as she can manage. That burgundy pillow sitting on her bed is about as much as she will allow herself. Some nights, it's all she deserves, others it's all she can get. But most nights, it's all she will allow.

They are called into the briefing room at ten, right on schedule, and everybody stands and starts to move. McCord stands up along with everybody else, and pulls the rest of her things from her bag, setting down a few more files and a notebook, and placing a book on top, whose cover shoots that same stinging feeling into her system.

She quickly forces it down as she gathers what she needs for the briefing. "That's a good book." She says simply, nodding toward McCord's copy of _Heat Wave._

McCord looks up with a raised brow as she continues to dig through her bag. "You've read it?"

 _I'm the inspiration behind the whole damn series,_ she thinks bitterly. "Yeah, uh…" She stumbles and motions toward the hard back copy, "Richard Castle was a colleague of mine at the NYPD."

McCord's brow raises in stunned surprise. "Really?" She asks, picking up the book and turning it over. Beckett can see his portrait on the back, squeezing her heart as the smile she knows, the one she can recognize shines back at her. "He's cute."

That shakes her, but she shoves it down into the deepest pit of her stomach she can reach in as short amount of time as she can handle. She grits her teeth and picks up the papers she needs for the briefing, quickly pushing past a few slow moving people to get a seat in the front. She's lost focus enough times today already.

She may have just opened a Pandora's Box by telling her partner that the author of the book she's reading in her spare time was a "colleague". McCord's clearly not the type to be star struck, so maybe that will be the end of it. The last thing that Beckett needs right now is her resolve being whittled away by a barrage of invasive questions regarding the only man to ever love her enough to actually propose to her.

And the only man she's ever broken that badly.

"You know," Beckett says as McCord falls into step beside her, her want for the situation to unfold betraying her, "he's actually going to be in town on Friday for a book signing."

"Oh yeah?" McCord says as they move into the briefing room, "you should stop by and say hi." She tells her, a friendly smirk on her face.

Beckett does nothing more than push her lips up into a heavy smile and take a seat next to her, shaking her head to herself, staring steely eyed down to her work.

By the looks of things, it looks like it's going to be another late night.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Probably posting this chapter too soon, but wanted to get it out. I have a few ideas for this story, have a few dialogues in my head that I want to get out. Let me know what you think. :)_

* * *

He blinks, readjusts his head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

He's been lying in bed for hours, doing exactly this all morning; nothing. It's just getting to the point in the morning where it would be considered a bad sign to still be in bed… when he's alone at least. His mind begins to drift again as he lets out a long breath. There were times when they'd stay in bed till this hour, just talking idly between each other. He loved those lazy mornings, when she'd forget her job, forget the whole world and just lay with him, and he'd like to think that she did too.

He'd like to.

He shakes away the cobwebbing of doubt that those stings of thought always get and forces himself to stop stringing them. Six months and she still has him ensnared, wrapped around her finger more tightly than the ring that he offered her. His heart turns to stone at that, shutting off all emotions except for one self-deprecating tidbit of what he can only consider to be pure fact at this point. He's just pathetic.

He lets out a short sigh as he throws off the sheets, turning it into a groan as he pushes himself off the mattress. He feels like he's aged ten years since she left. Maybe it's more mind over matter. All he's done since he abandoned the Twelfth is work out. That and let Gina talk him into recording his novels into audio books, wanting to get into the digital market. He runs his hand over his face, scratching the sandpaper going across his jaw and pushes himself off the bed and stands up.

His hand still hurts sometimes, but it's his own fault. He refused to take painkillers. More so out of a fear he would develop an addiction to them. Or maybe to punish himself for screwing everything up, for screwing up the best thing… or what was supposed to be the best thing to ever happen to him since Alexis was born. The first thing his eyes catch as he pads his way out of his office is the discoloration on the wall next to the door.

They never did match the color when they fixed the gaping hole in the wall his fist made. Punching through five eighths inch dry wall has its consequences. He flexes the fingers on his right hand as he makes his way into the kitchen. He still remembers that day; coming home after risking and losing it all, closing the door behind him and letting his rage consume him for just a split second. He threw that small velvet box clear across the loft, then sent his fist straight into the nearest surface.

He does and doesn't regret letting that happen. Nursing a broken hand gave his mind something else to focus on. But it still hurts. At least the physical pain distracted him from the emotional pain, for whatever that's worth.

He really thought that she loved him. He's madder at himself for believing her than he is mad at her for giving him a reason to believe her in the first place. She was standing on a bomb about to be killed, for God's sake. She would have told Ryan that she loved him if he'd been standing there. But he took what inch she offered and went a mile with it… like he always did.

He's ran that day over in his head a thousand and one times, replaying his words, losing himself in revisions, wondering what he could have said differently to get her to see him and what he was offering. Nothing ever works, it always ends the same way; with her saying "marriage isn't the right path for two people who can't even talk to each other."

It's her saying that that cleared it up for him. They were never on the same path to begin with. Or maybe they were and he just strayed. It's no use now, she's gone. And she took everything with her. He hasn't even written a single word since she left. That's the only real reason he agreed to the out of state book signings and audio book recording sessions; to give himself a reason not to write anything. Not that he could even if he wanted to. He hasn't faced a writer's block this long since before he met her.

The audio books get released today, and the publishers are pushing them hard. He has to go in to pick up his itinerary and plane ticket to DC this morning. That's a reason to clean himself up at least. If anything to keep Gina's back handed commentary on his appearance to a minimum when he sees her. After a few slow moving hours, he's out of the shower, dressed, freshly shaven and out into the cold.

Making his way through town, he loses himself in yet another fantasy. Landing in DC to find her waiting at the gate for him with a smile, bumping into her on the street and her being so overwhelmed with emotion that she jumps into his arms, her knocking on the door to his hotel room, her showing up at his book signing to get a book signed. She's probably out saving the world anyway, has more important things on her mind. He's probably the last thing she would think about at her new job.

She always said she wanted more from her career, and now she has it. He should be happy for her finding what it is she wanted, even if it's not him. But he can't bring himself to, feeling like the asshole, jaded ex that can't stand to see her happy. He can't even bring himself to admit he needs to get past her. Well, he knows he should because she's clearly not coming back, and if she hasn't done so by now, she has no interest in doing so, but he just can't stop himself from being in love with her.

Because at the end of the day, that's all it really is. He loves a woman who will never love him back. He has a self-destructive streak going on five years when it comes to that woman, he can't hope to break it after just six months. Old habits die hard, after all.

And he needs to kill this one quickly before he heads to DC.

* * *

For once, it's a slow Wednesday at the office. But it feels like a calm before the storm, like it always does when it's a slow day here. Something big is just waiting around the corner, waiting for the least opportune time to rear its head. But she just creases her brow, ready for it as she goes about filling out her share of meaningless government bureaucracy.

She still didn't sleep last night. She just decided to start taking caffeine pills to stay awake instead of sleeping pills to put herself to sleep. Nothing else is working, and she feels like a drug addict at this point. But they seem to be helping. Her eye lids don't feel too heavy, but her blood still feels lukewarm, slow. And an inch of shame is crawling up her system that she has to stoop to that level.

And she hopes that whatever is lurking just around the corner comes at her before Friday. Because she knows if she's able to sneak away during her lunch for long enough, she will find herself in that book store, and it won't end well. If it goes anything like what happened last time she had to hunt him down at one of his book signings, it can't end in any way that would allow her to stand looking into her past ever again.

Lost in thought, again, she gives her head a quick double take and clicks her pen, rereading the form she's been working on. It's a couple more minutes before an email pops up in her inbox, catching her attention. At first glance, it looks like spam, but when she sees who it's from, her throat closes. She can't remember the last time she got an email from his website that didn't get filtered into her junk folder.

He never did find out her username. But now, she leans forward, suspiciously looking over her shoulder as she clicks on the email to open it. The feeling of tight breath and anxiousness quickly overtake her as she sees what it's for. He always told her he hated audio books. He always said that audio books defeat the purpose of being a writer, that if he wanted people to hear him tell a story, he would have been a storyteller and not a writer.

But now, feeling her heart pop like popcorn in her throat at this opportunity, her finger shakes, hesitantly hovering over her mouse to confirm her purchase. The chance to get to hear his voice, hear his words being said in that rich, deep timber his voice has, it's not a chance she can pass up. She slams her finger down to her mouse and confirms her purchase and quickly exes out of the email to hide what she just did.

She's supposed to be moving on. Ever since she saw his image yesterday, the foundation of her resolve has been crumbling away like the warning signs of an avalanche, and what she just did… it feels to her like the town bell being wrung of the danger.

If she isn't on assignment all day Friday, she's going to be in that book store, telling herself all the while that she shouldn't.

"Something wrong?" She hears McCord ask across from her.

Beckett looks up with a raised brow, and a hum of acknowledgement. "Oh, no." She says with a friendly smile. "I'm just… waiting for things to pick back up."

McCord nods, looking away. "Are you seeing anyone?" She asks, the lightly toned question sending alarm bells ringing through her system.

Beckett looks back up, trying to forge as much dismissiveness as she can. The last thing she needs right now is a line of questioning like this. "Uh- no. I'm not." _I don't think I could stand myself if I agreed to date someone that wasn't him,_ she thinks to herself as she turns back down to her work. "I just got out of a relationship before I left New York, so… I'm not really ready to… to start dating again." She says between pretending to look over different forms. "I just want to focus on my job right now." She finishes with a confident smile that all but sucks her confidence from her.

McCord seems to agree with her answer, nodding her head again and turning back to her own work in front of her. In a way, she admires her new partner. She's a strong woman, smart, focused and great at her job, takes herself seriously. An image she can strive for herself in ten years.

But with her recent interest in her personal life, a fear comes creeping into her system. "Why?"

McCord lifts her hand up to her and smiles, "I was just curious, Beckett." With that, she accepts it and lets it fall from her mind. "I will just tell him that you're not interested."

A cold shiver gets sent up her veins, her fears confirmed. "Who?" She asks, not wanting to know, even as she takes a quick, obvious scan of the office.

"No one." McCord throws off. "I told him you weren't available anyway."

Beckett's brow scrunches together. "Really?"

"Yep." McCord starts, looking down at her work. "I figured you were in the same boat as I am, Beckett." She continues, flipping over the form she's on, taking in a long breath, "Married to the job." She says on a long sigh.

She feels and odd nothingness at that... what should be accusation. She just nods and looks back down to her work, hesitating for just a second before clicking her pen again and continuing to fill out her form.

She returns home that night, leaving late again, simply to wait around for something to happen that never did. She opens her door to her basement level apartment, kicking the mail off to the side that came through the slot, splayed out in the entryway, pulling her bag off her shoulder and catching it with her hand, dropping it next to her door. Flicking on a light, she pulls off her jacket, dropping it on the island in the kitchen as she passes her way into her the back toward her bedroom, toeing off her shoes on her way.

She doesn't bother eating, not feeling hungry and sits down on the edge of her bed. She takes a few deep breaths before pulling her phone out of her pocket and maneuvers her way to his audio book. Her thumb nervously quakes as she taps quickly against the screen, selecting the title and plugging it into her docking station beside her bed, her heart in her throat.

She reaches behind her, grabbing her deep burgundy pillow and clutching it to her chest, laying herself down. Closing her flooding eyes once she hears his voice pierce her ears.

 _"It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body. After she unbuckled her seatbelt…"_

She feels herself being taken by sleep quickly there after.

* * *

 _A/N: I had to sign up for audible to find out the first line of Heat Wave. Cancelled quickly thereafter. Wanted continuity for those who've actually read the book. Loved the responses I got to the last chapter. Keep them coming. :)_


	3. Chapter 3

Last night felt like the first time she's been granted a peaceful night's sleep in years. She knows it's only been six months, but it feels like so much longer. She slept long enough that she was actually late. Well, late to be as early as she normally is. Now she's just in time to be a little under an hour early as she grabs her jacket off the counter where she left it the night before.

She can almost stomach her coffee this morning, but decides to just finish the one cup before grabbing her bag and heading out. There's a tightness in her today, a gripping in the center of her chest, a firm anxiousness being set upon her like a leech, making her breath feel like it's being crammed into her lungs as she draws it in.

If she wanted to admit that she was that weak, she would just say that it was only his voice that put her to sleep last night. But she can't bring herself to. What's she going to do, put his audio book on every night just so she can get enough sleep to function without prescription sleeping pills? How long before it becomes more painful than it already is? Because it is painful hearing his voice.

What it carries with it; the memories, the hurt, the heartbreak, the faults. She needs to just get passed it. She thought she did, but now she feels like an alcoholic having just gone through a relapse. She grips her steering wheel with white knuckled fury and strains her eyes forward as she passes the book store he's going to be at this afternoon.

She's not going.

She is not going.

She shakes her head and draws in another tight breath she speeds through the light. If last night was anything, it's proof to herself that she needs to move on. If she can't even sleep without having him speaking to her in some convoluted manner like that, she's never going to get anywhere. Her resolve is steeled and fortified once she reaches the AG's office. McCord is already there, slowly flipping through paperwork and case files at her desk in the silence of the early morning lull. "Morning, McCord." Beckett casually greets her partner, setting her things down at her desk.

McCord looks up, a brow raised in surprise. "You're here later than usual." She says in lieu of a morning greeting.

Taking it to mean something else, Beckett quickly scans the office, "Why, did something happen?" She asks, pulling out her phone, "I didn't get a call or anything."

"No, you're fine, Beckett." McCord dismisses her partner's fears. Beckett feels her anxiousness loosen, but then tighten right back up as she pulls herself into her desk. "Mind if I ask why you weren't here before the janitor like normal this morning?"

Beckett lets out a breathy chuckle and turns on the monitor to her computer. "No, I just slept passed my alarm this morning." _Because I was listening to my ex-boyfriend's audio book and clutching a pillow I forgot to give back to him when I move out of my old apartment all night,_ she bitterly thinks to herself, gritting her teeth.

The day is slow, and there's an ember burning low in her stomach as the higher-ups start to filter in, looking at their expressions closely, watching for one of them to look surprised, to run out of their offices and call everybody in to tell them that work needs desperately to be done to keep the world safe again. But as the clock drudges ahead, nearing closer and closer to her break, nothing has yet to happen. And she's getting nervous.

She's never really been tested like this before. But then again, she's never loved anyone like she loved him before. The tightness that's been clenching her chest all morning starts to ungrasp her as she thinks this with a slow wave of desperate want slugging through her. She blinks hard again, snapping back into focus to her work, until she looks at the clock on her computer again.

It isn't until she sees a few people start to filter out for their own breaks that she snaps. She's never going to get past this, and will probably only get worse if she doesn't go anyway. "Hey," She calls to her partner, who's still sitting at her desk, lazily picking out of a small bag of chips, "I'm going to go grab a bite to eat. Will you call me if anything happens?" She asks, grabbing a few things off her desk and standing up to whisk her way out.

McCord lifts a finger and nods as Beckett turns to leave with a grateful smile, "Always."

She misses a step in her stride as that word stabs its way into her system. McCord said it offhandedly, as if it meant nothing. But she can feel this snake squeeze around her heart again, tighter than it has all morning. She shakes her head and quickly makes her way out, jumping in her car to go the distance across town to the book store.

That was their word, their own promise, just between them. Even before they got together, she knew what it meant. It was a promise that they broke. When he would say to her that word, he was saying that he would always be there, and she was saying the exact same thing. She knew that. Always means exactly what she thought it meant, so… what happened?

She can feel her heart rattle as she pulls to a stop a block away from the book store. She quickly walks down the street, legs feeling very unreliable, and skulks toward the door. The door is propped open, with his cardboard cutout image sitting out front, advertising the event. She stops just before she passes the window, looking inside.

She can see a large group of people, mostly women, with a few older ones being accompanied by their husbands. Her breath turns to a rock at the sight, but it isn't until she sees him step into her line of sight from around a floor to ceiling bookshelf blocking her view. She feels her breath wafting out of her, a riptide of emotions flooding through her.

He's smiling brightly, his eyes narrowed as he waves to the crowd in a pressed sport coat and a dark purple shirt. Her muscles feel so weak looking at him, her hands wanting to touch him so bad, her mind is reaching into the deepest recesses of her mind to make them remember what he feels like beneath them. He looks a bit skinnier, maybe even a bit younger, his hair a bit shorter and freshly styled, but it's everything behind it that makes her shoot through the door like a scared cat.

She can hear a few voices calling to him, asking him questions, and can see through the slots of the floor to ceiling bookshelves lined up in rows that he's standing at a podium. She bows her head and quickly hastens to go into one of the aisles to hide. She rolls her eyes to herself, _Beckett you coward._

"I-I uh…" She can hear him stammer, his voice sending a deep vibration through her blood, "I suppose I could take a few questions." He says.

The women clamber at once to ask him questions, but as she feels him look for one to answer, she turns around, looking through the slots, through the next book shelf in front of the one she's hiding behind to see him, just a sliver of him between a space where the books aren't completely lined up. "When will you be releasing a new Nikki Heat book?" One women asks, cutting the room into a silence.

"Uh…" He laughs breathlessly, "As soon as I have it written, promise." He says in his usual charming way, going about picking out another question.

"I read online that you're not working with the police in New York anymore." Another woman asks.

"Uhm…" He stammers again as she narrows her eyes, heart in her throat again. "No, I'm not. Needless to say, I decided to give them a break of having to deal with me."

She knows when he's throwing things off. The way he smirks, the tone in his voice, she knows it all too well. And she knows that's not why. She turns and shakes her head, putting her back against the bookshelf again.

"Is there anyone special in your life?" An over excited woman asks him, and it sends a cold stab right in her chest, freezing every sense she has.

His breathy laugh sends a tear rolling down her cheek, just now feeling that their flooded. "Yes, there is."

Her body wracks with a sob, her stomach pulling her heart into itself as she doubles over, quickly slapping her hand over her mouth and nose to cover the noise of her throat quaking. She pushes herself back against the wood slates of the bookshelf and looks up, shaking her head, in denial, in shame, in utter… complete heart break. "Are you alright?" A kind voice asks next to her.

She briefly pulls back the veils of her emotions to see an elderly woman standing next to her in the aisle, reaching out to her with a concerned look on her face. She silently forces a smile and lifts her hand and nods. It's just a second after that that she pushes off the book shelf, quickly moving around the edge of the store and speeds her way out the door, down the side walk with a wide stride and heart in pieces on the pits of her stomach.

She drops herself into the driver seat of her car, drawing in a long breath once she closes the door, and letting it out, feeling it shake. She draws in another, feeling it shake just as much. She angrily reaches up and wipes away the tears from her cheek with her fingers. If she had a better reason to start getting over him, she wouldn't know what it is.

He's moved on… from everything. The Twelfth, from his friends at the NYPD, from her, from everything. She sends ice over her heart, deciding that she needs to do the same.

She returns to the office quickly thereafter, feeling like a shell. Walled off, a husk, emotionless, like she needs to be right now. She sees her partner eye her as she sits down across from her, and waits for her to ask. But she never does. McCord just looks back down to her own work once Beckett is settled back into her desk. It's quiet the rest of the day, until everyone stands up to leave. "Hey, why don't we grab a drink?" McCord suggests, standing up and putting her coat on.

Beckett just shakes her head, feeling tired, "Oh, no, I-"

"Come on." McCord says with a nod of her head, "I'm buying and you look like you could use one."

They quickly make their way to a bar just near their office, filled with mostly lowly politicians and lobbyists. They sit at the bar, both smiling feignedly as the bartender sets two coasters down in front of them, ordering drinks as he does. "So," McCord starts, "you seem a bit out of it lately."

Beckett sighs as she takes the first long swig of her wine. "I just… haven't been getting much sleep lately is all."

McCord nods, a hard silence falling over them. "It's started, hasn't it?" She asks, looking over to her.

Beckett looks over, her brow straight. "What?"

McCord laughs a humorless laugh and looks down to her drink. "I call it the abyss." She says, twirling her glass in her hand in a circle. "You give everything you can to this job, hoping… that it will give you that feeling they told you it would. And it does." McCord says, looking back up to her with a soft smile, but she can see it fade quickly, "For a while." She nods. "And once you start to feel it fade, you say to yourself… 'just a bit more'." She says, tucking the corners of her mouth in. "So… you start coming in earlier, leaving later, putting just a little bit more of yourself into this job, hoping that it will give you the same amount of satisfaction it did last time."

McCord looks at her, and it isn't until now just how lightless they seem to Beckett. Maybe she's doing it on purpose.

"But it never does." McCord says with a shake of her head. "So you say 'just a bit more… if I just give it just a bit more, _then…_ it will all be fine.' So you put all of yourself into a job, until one day… you're wondering what the point is in protecting life," She says, looking up with the same walled off expression she's had on herself all day, "if you've lost your sense on how to live it."

It isn't until now that Beckett can feel the seriousness of what McCord is telling her.

"I was sold a _lie,_ Beckett." She says slowly. "I put… _everything_ I had into this job. And you want to know what it gave me?" She asks unquestioningly, looking over to her with a half lidded gaze, "The demand that I give just a little more the next day."

"Wha…" She starts to say, breathing out a response, a hard emotion swirling in her stomach, "what are you saying?"

"What did they tell you when they offered this job to you? That it would be more… that you could be a part of something important, bigger than yourself?" Beckett looks back down to her wine glass, nodding to herself, "And you poured everything you had into it, gave up everything, because you believed them. You know, all my life, I was told by those people that I could just… put it all into a career and get what I was looking for. That I could just forgo everything else and just put it all into my career, and I'd get what I was looking for there."

McCord looks over to her again, her eyes just starting to get glossy.

"I bought… into a _lie."_

"What do you mean?" Beckett asks softly.

"Beckett… I go home… every… night… to a dark, cold, empty apartment… _alone,_ because I was told I could fill it with my job and be happy. But you want to know something?" She asks, waiting for Beckett to look over to her, which she does, albeit hesitantly. "I would give _anything,_ to know what it's like… to come home and find someone waiting there for me, who loves me."

Beckett feels her heart shutter, a cold shiver quaking through her as she looks up to the ceiling and pushes away a tear track from her cheek.

"Richard Castle was something more to you, wasn't he?"

She shakes out a breath, trying to harden herself, "How'd you find out?" She asks in a small voice.

"I didn't think anything of it." She answers, turning around to dig in her purse. "Until I read the dedication." She says, putting her hardcover copy of _Heat Wave_ in front of her, opening it to the dedication page. "Colleagues don't dedicate books to each other."

 _To the extraordinary KB, and all my friends at the 12_ _th_ _._ It jumps off the page, stabbing her in the heart.

"I took a wild guess that you were 'KB'." McCord asks, pulling away the book and shoving it back down into her bag, resettling herself and looking over to Beckett while folding her hands in front of her. "Who was he?"

Beckett closes her eyes, her lungs straining to breathe normally and wipes the stubborn tear tracks from beneath her eyes. "If things had been different, he would have been the love of my life. Or… he was… or is, I don't…" She trails off, shaking her head. "You know, it's funny. You hear people talk." She says, looking over to her with a grin. "They say that… once their eyes met, they knew. Like they were struck by lightning. But for us… it was more of a…" She pauses, finding the right words, "a slow burn."

She pauses, her mind shooting from memory to memory.

"I mean, whenever we first started working together, he was such a _pest._ He was childish, he was obstinate, he was annoying, he was nosy, he was… generous, he was kind, he was noble, and loyal, and foolishly brave, and… warm." She says, a soothing but painful ripple going through her veins. "It took me nearly four years to finally admit that I wanted to be with him, and when I did…" She says, a smile finally brightening onto her face, thinking back to that night. "It was magical."

Her mind goes back to those months, her suspension, the fun they had.

"I mean, the first few months we were like jack-rabbits." She continues, folding her arms together. "We could barely get dressed without one of us dragging the other into bed. Plus," She says, slyly grinning evilly at her partner, "with the rules at the NYPD, we had to keep it secret so it gave it this… forbidden edge." She says, her shutter going into her breath. "But eventually," she says, her voice starting to lower, "I started noticing that we were having fun in lieu of having the difficult talks. So when we started hitting rough waters, it felt like we had no foundation to fall back on. And when I got offered the interview for this job, I saw it… as…"

"An emergency exit." McCord finishes for her.

Her emotions get a foothold as her body pulls in on itself for just a second, "Yes." She nods, pushing away the tears and breathing steadily afterward for a few seconds to regain herself. "I was making us dinner in my apartment a week later and he found my boarding pass to DC, and I told him about the interview." She pauses, remembering the hurt look in eyes. "We didn't even fight about it, he just… he just walked out." She says, high pitched anger sneaking into her voice. "I had myself convinced that I wanted this job more than what we had… at the time. So when he texted me and told me to meet him… I was prepared for him to break up with me. He told me that he's had to claw at me for every inch I've ever given him, and that we both deserved more."

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, thinking of his face as he gets down on his knee.

"But when he proposed… it just wasn't right. We had barely spoken to each other for weeks, we had been having a really rough time, and I just knew that we weren't ready for that step yet. So… I said no." She looks back over to McCord, who's still eyeing her with a solemn look. "He stood up with tears in his eyes and ran off. I took the job that night and was on a plane to DC the next morning. And now…" She breaths out a hard chuckle, "I have to stoop to listening to his audio books just to get to sleep at night, and sneaking into his book signings to hear him say he's seeing someone."

McCord breaths out a long sigh and finishes off her drink. "If you're looking for this job to give you what you and Richard Castle had, you're going to be waiting a long time." Beckett cranes her neck at that jab. "I know you're telling yourself that you can just focus on your career and everything will just finds its place. That you can just give all that up and be alright, that you can just give a hundred fifty percent to this job and it will give you some distorted form of what you had with him, but I'm going to tell you right now, Beckett…" She says seriously, looking over to her again, "that… is a _lie_."

After leaving the bar, Beckett slowly makes her way back to her apartment, parking her car on the curb and grabbing her bag, sluggishly walking toward her door. Unlocking it, stepping inside the dark and closing the door behind her, she stops, another wave of emotions flooding her eyes as the quiet, dark, cold of her apartment hits her.

She drops her bag to the floor with a thud, scanning the emptiness of her apartment, tears streaming down her face, feeling suffocated. It isn't a minute after that that she's sobbing into the pillow that has long since lost the scent of the man she gave up.

* * *

 _A/N: This chapter might have offended some people, but I really don't care. I stand by what I say. Also, I urge you not to jump to too many conclusions. As always, please let me know what you think. Love, hate, nothing, whatever. Send a review. :)_

 _And kudo's to anyone who found the Smallville reference._


	4. Chapter 4

It's taunting him… laughing at him… sneering at him from the safety it knows it has behind the screen. He's been keeping its menacing tempo with his finger, tapping against his knuckle as he clasps his hands together, resting his mouth against them. One flash every second, the most sinister thing ever to rear its ugly head since before he's met her.

Writer's block.

That thin line blinking him in the face has been mocking him ever since she said no and ran out of his life. And he's been sitting in front of his laptop for at least three hours now, in complete silence, in an overly spacious pent house in DC that Gina got him as a surprise for his agreement to narrate those stupid audio books. He hates audio books. Just put in the effort and read the book, he's done his part in writing it.

But now, staring at the endless bottomless pit that is the blank white screen shining in his face, sitting on the large couch with his laptop sitting on the table in front of it, still tapping his finger to the beat of the flashing line in Word, his mind is clouded with… nothingness. Ideas dimly flickering, but never igniting the story. Sentences starting, but never forming.

Oh yeah, he's done _plenty_ of research to write ten more books, Mother. She wasn't wrong, so why can't he just do it? "Oh, when are you gonna write another Nikki Heat book?" He mockingly sneers to himself as he stands up and slowly starts to pace his way across his hotel room, crossing his arms. "Just as soon as that stupid line quits blinking at me." He says with clenched teeth and a frustrated wave of his arm through the air.

His head is starting to hurt. He wants to just bang it against something, wanting to physically knock some sense into himself. He's been going crazy ever since he got to DC. He even imagined seeing her at that book signing yesterday. It was like a ghost, catching the glimpse of the petite figure of a woman he'd recognize anywhere, shooting past the window. Maybe he does need to hit his head against something, because there is clearly something loose in there, maybe that's what keeping him from being able to write anything.

He paces his way back behind the couch, staring down the screen of his laptop as if it's challenged him to a duel. A duel he is losing, but is determined to win. He's going to come up with something if it kills him. He's a professional, bestselling writer for God's sake, it really shouldn't be this hard. He can feel his jaw click as his screen saver comes up, turning the screen black. Letting out a frustrated groan, he feels his arms tense and flex in anger with himself.

Accepting temporary defeat to his foe, he leans forward against the back of the couch with his head hanging heavily. It's just a few seconds after that that he hears a rapid fire knock on the door. He didn't call for any room service or anything, and his flight home isn't scheduled till Monday. He quickly goes around the white leather couch in the pent house suite and pulls open the door with unaware naivety.

His eyes go wide, his blood quickly thickens in his veins, his heart jumps into his throat, and his emotions are flashing so quickly, he honestly can't decide what he's supposed to be feeling looking at the woman in front of him. In a pair of pressed black slacks, a tight white blouse, a black blazer, and hair pulled back into a tight ponytail with her hands clasped almost gingerly in front of her as she looks down to the floor between them, he can't help but wonder if he's just seeing things like he did yesterday.

Still paralyzed, he doesn't react to her looking up with a soft smile and crinkling hazel green eyes. "Hey Castle." Her voice sounds like her; soft, soothing, airy when she's not entirely confident of herself.

His mouth falls open, but his vocal chords are seized up. "Uh…" He struggles, his subconscious mind trying to force its way to his frontal lobe to tell him that it's her, she's really here, just like he fantasized about, do something. "Hey." He says, surprising himself by lifting his voice in an honest friendly greeting.

Kate spindles from side to side as she stands in his doorway, head turned down, looking at him through the veil of her lashes. "I-I uh… I heard you were in town, so…" She says with a small voice, still surprising him with her nervousness. "I figured I'd stop by."

His mouth still hangs open, at a complete loss for words. He knows what he should be feeling; anger, hurt, pain, anguish. But he just feels a lightness to him, like she's just sucking everything out of him. She's always had a way of doing that. All he can muster is a blink and a small nod.

Her brow lifts as she lifts up her hand. "Mind if I come in?"

It's in that second that the old version of himself comes crawling back, the version of himself that will put him through hell to be around her just because of the way she makes him feel. He is well aware of this as his muscles make the decision to step aside that it's not healthy… but he loves her. He steps off to the side with a smile and lifts his hand, gesturing her inside. "Not at all."

She flashes a crocked smile as she sheepishly steps past him, her shoulders sunken in, her hands clasped, and making sure the distance between them is noticeable as she goes past him. His heart starts to pull as he slides the door closed behind her, turning back around to watch her slowly make her way into his hotel room.

He's still taken aback by her beauty. It has a way of shutting down his meager defenses, making him feel weak. "So uh…" She starts, turning around to take a step backward, leaving him to slowly follow her inside, "you look good… like you've lost weight."

He can feel himself smile at her compliment, but can't help miss the sour taste of awkwardness permeating the air between them. "You…" He starts, lifting a hand as his eyes jealously rake over her, watching as she puts on leg over the other and twists her hips, as if on cue. "You look like every conspiracy theorists fantasy."

She gives him a knowing smirk, and he would think that she was sexily teasing him if it were any other time. "You mean yours?"

"You know how I love a good conspiracy theory." He says with the same smirk she has. It isn't until the words leap off his tongue that he snaps his mental filter back in place, realizing that that isn't them anymore. He doesn't have the right to say those things to her anymore, to be this teasing and… and charming.

But she just widens her smile and looks down to the floor as she twists her ankle around.

With another awkward silence befalling them, standing a good distance apart from each other, a thought floats into his mind. "How'd you know where to find me?" She looks up from the floor, and his mental filter falls away before he can stop it. "Let me guess. NSA spying is actually real?"

She narrows her eyes and grins. "I don't have that kind of clearance, Castle." She tells him, starting to meander off to the side in front of him.

"So I guess a Men in Black memory eraser is out of the question then?" He jokes, slowly starting to follow her through the hotel room.

"Not standard issue, I'm afraid." She says with her lips pursed.

"Laser watch?"

"After that little incident with my microwave? I don't think so, Castle."

"Hey, I said I was sorry about that." He says, looking over to her with a shrug in his shoulders, and an arch in his brow. Her smile is soft, bright, happy, and it reminds him yet again that this isn't supposed to be them anymore.

"So…" She says, a strain sounding like it's gripping her voice as she turns to a stop, facing him, "I didn't expect to find you here alone."

His brow pushes together, meandering away from her a bit. "What do you mean?" He knows that they broke up, but she at least has to think more of him than that.

"Well… it's just…" She nervously says, her eyes seeming hurt. "I-I stopped by your book reading yesterday, and… a-and I heard you say that you were seeing someone, so…"

His eyes flick around, flipping back through the memory of that long event he had to do the day before, and when he realizes his, his eyes roll and his tense muscles relax a bit. "Oh, that?" He can see her eyes soften a bit, from concentrated anxiousness to pure wondering. "Beckett… I just say that so they won't hit on me."

Her head shakes a bit, her lips puckered out as if lost for words, blinking rapidly as she stammers. "What?"

"You'd be surprised how fast women throwing themselves at you loses its appeal after..." _being with you,_ "a while." He corrects himself, snapping his filter back in place in the nick of time. He sees her smile break out for just a split second as she looks away, breathing out an airy chuckle, the aura of tenseness surrounding her seeming to drop. And then, his pull, his curiosity, a question he probably doesn't want answered gets asked. "What about you?"

Her eyes find his again, wide in wondering what he's asking.

"Anyone sweep you off your feet yet?" He asks her, heart pounding in his throat despite the casualness of the question.

She softens her eyes with a shake of her head. "I'm still trying to come down from the last time that happened." She answers, looking him straight in the eye, silently telling him what he hopes she means.

"So that _was_ you I saw." He says, taking a step toward her. She just nods sharply, looking away again. "You couldn't have said hi?" He asks with his voice soft and deep.

"Well…" She starts on a small chuckle, "seeing you again after…" _you said you didn't want to marry me?_ "what happened…" She corrects his thoughts, "it…" She struggles, shaking her head as she grasps for words.

He nods, lifting a hand to save her from her stammering. "No, I get it." God, this is so awkward. A part of him wants to grab her up and kiss her just to break the air between them, or maybe to shut himself up so he won't say anything stupid. He could tell her to just get out, like any normal person would, but that self-destructive habit seems to be harder to kill than he gave it credit for.

"Good, then…" She says, her voice more solid now as she squares off her shoulders to him, lifting her neck to look at him in the eye, the first time she's done since he let her in, "why don't you come by tonight? We can catch up."

He decides that he just needs to be honest with her now. With a shake of his head, he begins, "Kate-"

But she stops him, "Rick." She says softly, putting her hand up to stop him, "please." She says, blindsiding him with her plead. "There's just some things I want to say."

He lets out a long, draining breath and feels his shoulders tense. But after a few seconds, he betrays himself for her. "Okay."

Her lips break into a smile before she seems to correct herself with a nod. "I'll uh…" She says, her long legs stepping off to the side to move over to the counter, "I'll write down the address for you." As she goes about to quickly write down her address, he can't help but drink her in. He tries to remind himself that she broke his heart, and that it was her that destroyed what they had, but he can't help but just be drawn to her.

She turns around with a scrap of paper in her hand, still emitting nervousness and awkwardness, both of them guilty of it.

"So, seven thirty?"

"That'll work."

She smiles softly again with a huff of air, her eyes unmistakably sparkling at him and hands him the scrap of paper. He takes it from her, mindfully careful not to brush her fingers with his. But as she looks toward the door, she starts toward it and lifts her hand, gently placing it on his right bicep as she passes, only letting go when she's out of reach.

His breath feels stolen from him as he watches her leave, feeling as if she's sucking every bit of him that said it was all her fault right out of him. And once she closes the door behind her, he draws in a long breath and exhales in a long sigh. Maybe it's his fault; for letting her go at all, for not giving her enough of a reason to stay, for not pushing her enough, or maybe for expecting that she may have even wanted to marry him at all.

He closes his eyes and shakes his head again, blaming himself for getting them into this situation at all, and throws himself back in front of his laptop on the couch, tapping against the keyboard to bring back up that same menacing screen, that…

He stops, looking back toward the door she just walked out of, then back down to the blank screen, putting his fingers over the keys. He isn't feeling blocked… but pulled. He pauses to look to where he last saw her.

It's just seconds after that the duel he'd been losing for months is won, and the words start flowing again.

* * *

 _A/N: Really loved the response I got from the last chapter. Overwhelmed! Not as sure about this chapter, it felt off for some reason. But hopefully the next chapter will feel more... natural, I guess. Let me know what you think. :)_


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: I'm probably gonna piss some people off with this chapter. Just know that the exploration of these two characters is far from over, stick with it and keep reviewing. :)_

* * *

She runs her fingers through her hair, the last time of many as she tries to get it just right. She's having difficulty getting all the curls in the right place, too curly, not curly enough, too heavy, too frilly, too in her face, too much forehead, she just can't seem to get it right.

She hasn't felt this way in so long. And she's very conscious of it as she runs her hands down her chest to smooth over the wrinkles in the black cotton polo she's wearing, a nervous clench tightening her ribcage, making her legs feel jittery and her hands feel clumsy. She feels like she's breathing too fast, like her mind is too jumbled. She really don't know what to expect when he shows up, and he's due here in just a few minutes if he decides to keep time.

Every part of her wants something different to happen. Her body wants him to just scoop her up and let him have his way, her mind just wants to get things back to normal between them, but her heart… her heart wants them to just have it out, once and for all. She wants to just have that one fight that they will both look back on and say 'that was the moment'. To just let all those unspoken words spew out of them both, get it all out in the open and if they don't hurt each other too much, maybe they can begin to pick up the pieces.

She wanted to have it when she saw him, but catching him alone took a swipe at her. And then when he said that he only said what he said to keep those desperate women from hitting on him, it filled her with a hope that maybe they didn't have to fight. Then there was a brief moment when she felt like they were falling into step again, when they were just casually joking as they did before, hinting on that flirtatious edge.

For those few seconds, it felt easy, but it also felt shallow. She knows how it feels when they are just deep into each other. That magnetic whirlpool their eyes get caught in, the current snapping like firecrackers between them, the unquenchable desire, she knows they have that together, and it's only when he lets that smirk he uses to throw everything off fall away that she can get that out of him.

She knows what she wants as she pauses to take one last look in the mirror. It's going to be hard to get, more so because she knows she won't want to push the way he does, but if she wants them to get to that level, she needs to pull it out of him.

A knock on her door thuds through her apartment and she hastens to answer it. She pulls open the door with a bright smile, her whole spirit being lifted at the sight of him just as it was earlier today. The smile he gets out of her feels like it's the most realistic, natural smile she has. "Hey." She greets as she quickly steps aside to usher him in. "Get inside, it's freezing out there."

She quickly shuts the door behind him, feeling her body tighten in on itself as he unwraps his scarf from around his neck with a soft smirk. She silently takes it from his hands once he's free of it and puts it on the bureau against the wall beside her door, then taking his coat as he slips it off his broad shoulders. "Kind of warm in here." He says as he turns around, knitting his brow together as he unbuttons the top button on his shirt.

"Well, you know me, Castle." She forces casually, but it feels so awkward, she almost cringes as she quickly skirts around him and into her kitchen, leaving him to slowly meander into her apartment, looking over the furniture. "Can I uh…" She starts, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, catching his attention, "Can I get you something to drink? I-I don't have much, but…" She says with a laugh and lets her words fall.

He smiles gratefully and lifts his hand. "I'm fine."

She nods widely, pushing her chin out in an obvious gesture. There's another thick shield of awkward silence that falls between them again as his eyes continue to drift around her apartment, not looking at anything in particular. "So, how've you been?" God, what is she doing?

"I've been alright," He says, his voice light as he nods his head and looks back over to her, "as alright as I can be, anyway."

Her breath makes a U-turn in her throat as his tone takes a sudden shift into seriousness. "W-what do you mean?"

He stops and turns to face her, standing a good distance from her, "Well, when the love of your life says she doesn't want to marry you, it tends to take its toll."

Then, her heart takes over. "Don't put words in my mouth, Castle." She says, the barrier blocking her words breaking like a leaky dyke. "I didn't say that, and you know it."

"You said no, Kate, what else am I supposed to get from that?"

"I _never_ said… that I didn't want to marry you." His eyes narrow and he does a double take, but she pushes ahead. "I said that we… weren't… ready." She tells him, punching every word to bring it home. His eyes roll and he slowly spins away from her. "You would have heard that if you hadn't run off."

They're really doing this. Something they've never done before. "Well forgive me for taking it kind of hard."

"Castle, can you honestly say that we were ready to get married?" She says, desperation seeping into her voice as she pulls her hands out of her pockets and steps toward him.

"No." He says with a raised brow and lidded gaze, "We obviously weren't, and I was probably a fool for thinking we were."

"Castle…" She says, sinking her shoulders to him, "we had _barely_ spoke to each other… for weeks, when you proposed. We lied to each other, we kept secrets, we didn't talk, and that's not how two people who are ready to commit their lives to each other act."

"I loved you, Kate." He says, and it stabs her sharply, his use of past tense. "I could have just looked past all that."

"Marriage isn't a magic switch, Castle. We can't just slip rings on our fingers and make all those problem go away. You should know that better than me."

"What's that supposed to mean?" He accuses in a tight voice.

"I take marriage very seriously, Rick. I've told you that before. It's a promise that we will _never_ leave each other, no matter what happens, no matter how angry we get with each other, and it's a promise that we won't ever go back on. You can't honestly say that we were ready to make that promise to each other."

"I _know_ what marriage is, Kate." He response angrily, pointing a finger up to himself. "And yes, I was ready, because I love you. So much that I'm willing to walk straight into a burning building for you, and if you think I'm just being poetic, I'm not, because I've actually _done that_ before."

"Are you saying that I didn't love you?" She asks, honestly hurt at what he's trying to say. He rolls his eyes a bit and shakes his head, trying to shake her off, but she doesn't buy into it. "Castle, if I thought that we could just love each other enough to make a marriage work, I would've said yes in a heartbeat, because I _do_ love you that much. But you should know better than me that it takes more than that."

"There it is again. Are you really accusing me of not taking marriage seriously?" At least he's pushing. If anything, it's a good sign. But she can't think of that, and just keeps pushing back.

"Castle, if we get married, I want it to last forever." She says in a slightly softer voice, taking another step toward him and shaking her hands in front of her in a chopping motion. "I don't want to end up like Gina or Meredith."

"Gina and Mer-" He says, narrowing his eyes, his veins popping out in anger. "You're really holding my past against me." He says as a fact. He shakes his head and leans back, staring her down. "Out of all the people in my life, you're the last person I expected to do that to me."

"I don't even _know_ about your past, Rick." She says, trying to extinguish the doubts he has about her. "If you would tell me about it, then maybe we wouldn't be in this mess."

"It shouldn't matter, Kate. I don't want you to be with me because you feel sorry about what happened to me. I want you to be with me because you love me."

"I _do!"_ She spits, "For Christ's sake, Castle, I love you. Will you please have some faith in that? And you should know that the past does matter. You've been poking around in my past since the day we met, and you're really going to tell me that it doesn't matter when _I_ start asking about yours?"

"I don't remember you ever asking me." He counters, his voice going high in his defense.

She feels her shoulders drop, pausing to unclench her vocal chords. "You're right… and that's my fault." She starts, watching him as he places his hands on his waist and turns away from her angrily. "I should have asked, I should have… I should have tried harder than I did. That's on me." He doesn't respond, and it's here that she has to challenge him again. "But would you have told me?"

His eyes quickly find hers again, whipping around in squinted shock, "Of course, I would have." His voice tight and unconvincing.

"Really?" She pushes. "Because when I asked you where our relationship was going, you did exactly what I was told you do."

"What? When?"

"That night after that case with Vaughn." His eyes narrow, still angrily asking her what she means. "I asked you where we were going, and you threw me off."

"So now I'm wrong when I'm trying to make it up to you after making you feel the need to get back at me for what happened that night."

"Castle, will you stop blaming yourself?" She asks, a sad, desperate plea finding its way into her voice. It still has an accusatory edge to it that she can't get rid of.

"Where is any of this coming from, anyway?" He asks, pushing back.

"Meredith." She says, spewing it out without regard of how he'll take it.

His eyes open wide in stabbing surprise. "Meredith." He says back.

"She just said some things that-"

"What did she say, Kate?" He asks, taking a step toward her with a dark, almost hateful expression as he starts to leer toward her.

"Castle, this-"

" _What did she say?!"_ He shouts loudly at her.

"Don't _yell_ at me, Castle!"

"Beckett, Meredith is the most poisonous women I've ever met, and if she said something that turned you against me, I need to know about it." He says with clenched teeth and hard eyes.

"She did _not_ turn me against you, Rick. Will you please have some faith in me?" She pushes back, desperately wanting him to just know how deeply she loves him. "She told me that after all those years of marriage, she felt like she didn't know you, and that every time she would bring up your future, you'd smirk and threw her off." She admits.

" _That's_ what she told you?!"

"Was she wrong?"

"Beckett, _Alexis_ could have told you a more accurate story than that!" He says as he takes a step away from her and turning his back to her. "I told you what she was like, Kate."

"Well, you're not exactly proving her wrong here, Castle."

"I never should have let her stay with us." He mutters to himself as he shakes his head again.

"Castle, if you're so angry with me about asking Meredith why you two got divorced, then why won't you just tell me?"

"Because you never bothered to ask."

"I'm asking _now,_ Castle."

"She cheated on me!"

And with that, the frail structure that Meredith constructed around his past turns to dust in an instant, the laying of blame solely on his feet, she feels her assumptions wash away in a mere instance. "What?" She asks softly, taking a step toward him with a reach of her hand.

"I'm guessing she left that part out." He hisses, narrowing his eyes even further.

She can feel her eyes burn, seeing the hurt trying to mask itself, and… "Rick… why didn't you tell me?" He doesn't answer her, just shakes his head and turns away again, but she starts to follow him. "You have to know that I would… _never_ do that to you."

He stops dead, turning back to look at her, seeing his eyes brimmed with red. "Well, you didn't exactly pass that test with flying colors, Kate." His voice is shaking, and… oh god, what was she thinking?

She lets out a shaky breath, guilt sending a sharp stab into the bottom of her heart. "Rick… I am sorry… for what happened with Vaughn. I never should have even agreed to stay with him."

He shakes his head again, now unwilling to look her in the eye. "Well, you shouldn't have ever felt the need to."

"Castle." She says seriously, clogged with emotions. "Will you please… stop… blaming yourself. It was my mistake. And no matter what we're going through, you didn't deserve that, Rick." She just can't seem to penetrate that point deep enough. Like it's just bouncing right off. "But can't you see my point? If one guy can come in and throw us off that badly, what does that say about our relationship? That won't change just because we get married, Castle, as much as we want it to."

"Well, maybe it's because you don't want it to." He weakly fires back, and it makes her snap.

"Castle, will you _please_ just stop it?" She angrily says, getting frustrated and very annoyed with him. "I mean, it's not that you don't have faith in me, it's like you don't even have faith in yourself." And with that, she can feel the change, the sudden shift in the air between them, the feeling that she just found the one chink in his armor.

The way his jaw clicked, his teeth gritted, his glossy eyes narrowed, his head turning away from her, still unable to look in her eyes. She can feel that she just found the one flaw in his emotional armor, and can feel him silently scream out in pain as she jams into it.

"That's it, isn't it?" She asks, realization washing over her, making her brow relax and muscles unclench from anger, turning into a pull, the need to go to him, push him to open up more, not to blame him. "Isn't it?" She asks again, her voice soiled as she takes another step toward him, one last ditch effort to get him to open up to her.

"I've gotta get out of here." He mutters quickly and starts toward the door.

But her hand reaches up quicker, latching onto his bicep with a talon-like grip, her fingers digging deeply into his muscles as she feels her tears flood over her lashes, having to tug at him to get him from pulling away.

"Kate, what are you doing?" He asks, voice still thick with emotion.

"Something I should have done six months ago." She says, looking forward and not at him, but lifts her head up to turn toward him, still latched onto his arm with tears still lingering in her eyes. "I'm stopping you." His eyes seem to soften just a bit, but she can still feel him radiate with hurt, looking so vulnerable. "I'm not letting you walk out of my life again, Castle."

"You were the one who left."

She feels her teeth grit, knowing he's right. "Well now I'm coming back…" She says, her voice soft as she tugs at his arm again, "and I'm not letting you push me away."

* * *

 _A/N: Geez, everyone wants me to make Castle perfect, he has flaws, they are very deep seeded, he's had a traumatic life, things like that are very hard to get past. Some of us can speak from experience, some of us can't. I can't justify Castle changing his behavior on a whim. But go ahead, send me an anon. review calling me an idiot saying your done with me. But if you want my psycho-analytical opinion on Castle and his own flaws, please feel free to ask me and I'll PM you my reasoning, although, I will delve into it later on in the story._

Just keep with it, and I'll unravel it all in due time. :)


	6. Chapter 6

She lays awake in bed, laying on her side, staring at her clock, just a few minutes after she was pulled from sleep.

He stayed, but was stone silent the rest of the night. After she finally pierced his thick hide of emotional armor, his own walls that she's always been up front about, he looked like a frightened child. She was gentle with him the rest of the time as she softly padded around her apartment, leaving him to nervously push his hands into his pockets and look anywhere but into her eyes. He just looked so vulnerable. She's never seen him like that, and she wanted so badly to help him.

But she didn't want to hurt him, didn't want to push him too far. She remembers what it's like being pushed too far, with Burke there was always a breaking point he was aware of, and he always backed off trying to straighten her out until she was ready. And with Castle, she found that point last night. If he doesn't even have faith in himself, doesn't believe in himself at all, then he will end up taking the blame for things that aren't his fault. So when she does screw up…

Her heart shutters with disgust at herself at that shoots into her mind. When she does screw up, like she did with Vaughn, it might devastate him, make him question everything about himself. But she needs to once and for all prove to him that she loves him. He's proven that to her time and time again. She can't question how deeply he loves her at this point, because he does. Maybe now it's her turn.

Decided, she sits up and wonders if he's awake yet. It's only a few minutes after seven, and he did sleep on her couch, with his old pillow he used when he slept at her place in New York. He didn't seem to notice when she placed it in his hands, along with a blanket. But he still seemed shaken. She stands up and slowly opens her door, the first thing smacking her in the face being a very appealing scent of… actual food.

Curiosity peaking, she pads her way down the hall and into her kitchen that's off her living room, seeing him dressed and at the stove, a towel slung over his shoulder with a blank expression staring down at a frying pan that has steam rising from it. "Castle?"

He turns away from her without a word to the other side of the counter, turning around with her dark blue mug in his hand, having just speared the tan liquid with a cinnamon stick. She follows the coffee with her eyes, a smile perking at the edges of her lips. She looks back up to him when he offers it to her, but is taken aback a bit by his lack of expression. He's just looking straight through her. She sheepishly reaches up and grabs the handle, eyes drifting off as she slowly lifts it to her lips.

As it slides down her throat, the rich sweetness, a spice of cinnamon with a hint of vanilla in the coffee as it warms her quickly, and she moans deeply to herself. It's the first real cup of coffee she's had since all this happened, and it tastes amazing. She opens her eyes and watches him stoically turn back to the stove again. "What are you doing, Castle?" She asks him, taking a step forward.

Still not saying a word, his hands move about out of sight, and after a few more movements, he turns back to her with a plate in his hands, setting it down slowly on the counter in front of her. He still hasn't broken his mask of an expressionless face, even as he sets down a plate with a large omelet, covered with pepper-jack, three avocado slices on top, with two pieces of toast, and a small vine of grapes.

Her smile breaks free as she breathes out a laugh of amazement, taking a step toward the counter to pull out the stool he set it in front of. "Where'd you get all this?" She knows she doesn't have all this stuff in her fridge.

"I Uber'd to the store." He finally breaks his silence as he turns back to the stove to turn it off and gather up the cooking apparel.

Her smile brightens, her heart exploding with love. Why did she ever give him up? "You _Uber'd_ to the grocery store just to make me breakfast?"

"Eat… it's getting cold." He says deeply, still being emotionally withdrawn, and she notices it all too well, and knows she needs to push.

Watching him as he rinses off the pan he used, she calls to him. "Castle." He looks over his shoulder from the sink, his brow slightly raised, but eyes still far away, "You didn't have to do this."

He shuts off the sink, and turns around, "Yes, I did."

"Why?" She fires back rhetorically, meaning to go on about how if this is to make up for what she did, then she doesn't want it, but he stops her.

"I'll tell you why after you're finished." He says, looking at her seriously, and she doesn't give in until he moves around the counter and places his warm hand on her arm, making her heart swell, her whole body reacting to his simple loving touch. "I promise." With that, he briefly pets her arm with his thumb and moves down the hall to the bathroom.

She nods to herself and goes about eating what he prepared. She feels nothing but pleasure eating what he made her. He always was a good cook, but it's more so that it's actual home cooked food that was made for her. And the feeling of her waking up to find him waiting for her with a warm, delicious cup of coffee isn't lost on her either. It was brief, but the wave of pure happiness that washed over her when he presented all this to her is something she just can't compare to anything else.

It only takes her a few minutes to scarf her breakfast down, feeling very hungry for something that isn't cold and boxed. By the time she hears him coming back down the hall and into the kitchen, she's meagerly picking away at her grapes. "That was amazing, Castle." She says, being truthful as she looks back up to him. "Thank you."

His lips finally perk up into a subtle smile as he takes her plate from her. "I hadn't planned on it." He says in a much more tuneful voice, not monotone and overly steady as it was before. He pauses to quickly rinse off her plate and turn around, leaning against the island across from where she sits. "Until I had a look around."

Her heart goes into her throat then, making her nervous, like she's being accused of a crime. "What do you mean?"

He lets out a long, heavy sigh and leans back. "For starters," He says, lifting his brow and stepping toward her fridge and pulling open the door, "your refrigerator looks like something I might find in Alexis's dorm room if I didn't force her to eat at home at least twice a week." He says, looking at her, then turning back down to look inside, "I mean, that Chinese food looks like the kind of thing the nerd in high school eats to gain superpowers."

She has to swallow a laugh at that, but is still feeling fired upon, so she doesn't show it, still watching him as he closes the door and goes to the cupboard.

"The sell by date on this coffee…" He starts again, turning around and holding up her coffee grounds, "is dated two months ago. I know how much coffee you drink, Beckett. This should be long gone by now."

She nods and looks away, her heart telling her to say to him that she couldn't drink coffee unless it was his. But she can't muster up the courage. Her overly rational mind is telling her that she just can't remember how he makes it. She just continues to follow him with her eyes as he puts the grounds back and comes to stand across from her again.

"And then…" He says, his eyes looking away from her and his neck craning as he digs into his pocket, "I found this." He says in a heavy voice, pulling out an orange prescription bottle. At the sight of it, her heart freezes. "The date issued on this is from two weeks ago… and according to the dosage, you should have at least five days left." He says, her still being unable to look at him. "Kate…" He calls, and she caves, looking up to him, seeing resonate with concern. "This bottle is empty."

She clenches her teeth, two sides of her waging a war. One side wanting to be angry with him for snooping, the other side, the winning side, wanting to just admit to him all of it, accept the help he thinks she won't accept from him, and say to him that yes, he does have a place in her life that only he can fill now.

"They haven't been working, have they?"

She lets out a shaky breath and looks down to her lap, picking at one of her finger nails. "No." She embarrassingly admits. She can feel his eyes on her, his warm gaze washing over her, pulling the admission from her. "Ever since I took this job, I haven't been able to sleep." She tells him, still hiding behind her hair.

She expect him to say something, anything, an 'I told you so', or 'you need me', but he never does. Just a few moments of silence before she's continuing on, her heart knifing its way through.

"I started taking sleeping pills about two months ago, but all they've done is make me tired. I've been…" She says, waving a hand at his pillow, sitting on the arm rest of her couch on top of the folded blanket he used, "hugging the pillow… thinking it might help, because…" She starts, the want to tell him overpowering the need to hide it, "it's the one you used when you'd stay at my place. The only thing that helped is your audio book." She finally tells him in a half-hearted chuckle. "Just… hearing your voice, having you in the room, it… it helped."

"Beckett… that audio book was only released a few days ago." He says, voice soft and lifted with concern.

"I know." She admits, looking up to him with an arched brow.

He lets out a breath and shakes his head. "Beckett…" He says on a sigh, bracing himself on his arms against the counter. "When I said I've had to scratch and claw for every inch, this is what I was talking about."

"Castle, we haven't spoken to each other in six months." She defends both her and him.

"Kate, if you want me to have faith in myself, then I need you to do the same thing." He tells her, stopping what defense she had for their actions, lack thereof, as it might be. "Look, I know…" He starts, looking back up to her, "that you might think I enjoy seeing you like this. But even if it's not me, I want you to have someone there if you need someone."

"Well…" She follows, leaning forward on her arms, "you're in luck." She says, looking into his eyes, "Because it is you." His eyes soften from concern to a hint of longing. "And… you're right, I have been going through a rough time since I took this job." Her honesty streak betrays her, "A _really_ rough time, actually. I haven't been sleeping, my appetite is nonexistent, I'm exhausted all the time, and I've been… _trying…_ to convince myself that it wasn't you, and that it was just stress from the job, but…" She just shakes her head and lets her words fall.

There's a pause between them again, softer, just both of them waiting for the other to broach the next topic once one of them chooses one. But he takes that plunge for her, "So," he strains, "where do we go from here?" He asks, shoving off the island and going toward the couch. "We gonna yell at each other some more?" He halfheartedly jokes as he sits down.

She smiles and breathes out another chuckle. "No, we got that out of the way." She answers, pulling herself off the stool and coming to stand at the end of the island, thinking. She needs to prove to him that she loves him, he needs a different kind of proof, she knows that. And if he's so afraid to tell her about his past, it's probably because he's afraid it might… "Tell me what happened with Meredith." She says softly, crossing her arms.

He leans forward, clasping his hands between his knees with a crease in his forehead. "I already told you, she cheated on me."

"There's always more to the story, Castle." She fires back, "It's the most important thing you taught me. And… short of blowing up the loft so I can pull you naked out of your bathtub… I don't know how else to prove to you that I love you."

"You don't need to blow up the loft to do that, Beckett." He smirks.

"Castle." She says seriously, stopping him. He looks over to her and she just raises her brow, knowing what he's doing. "There's nothing you can say that will change how I feel about you. And the only way I can prove that to you is if you tell me."

His jaw clicks forward, and he nods sharply, taking a few deep sighs. "Alexis was five… and we had just gotten back from a parent-teacher conference."

"Alexis needed a parent-teacher conference?" She asks, stopping his story, just at sheer amazement.

"She wasn't the one in trouble." Beckett asks him to elaborate by a lift in her brow and an agape smile. He rolls his eyes and scoffs, "Apparently… a teacher can tell if a five year old has her best-selling novelist father help her with her homework." She stifles her giggling fit and moves her arms to grab one of her shoulders. With another deep sigh, he continues. "We had just gotten home from getting ice cream when I opened the door to find Meredith on the couch, crying. She told me that she had just been passed up for a huge role… it would have made her career."

She just stays silent, listening intently at the story he's telling.

"And I suggested… that she take some time off and spend some time with Alexis. Because I was having a lot of fun being a dad, and I felt… selfish… that she wasn't having just as much fun being a mom. But what she _heard…_ was that I wanted her barefoot and pregnant, cooking and cleaning, waiting on me hand and foot while I played on the computer. We got into this… huge fight. It lasted for about two hours before she finally said that she needed some air and walked out. Next time I heard of her was in the tabloids… saying that she'd been seen in Malibu with one of her old co-stars." He says, his voice shaking but trying to remain steady as his eyes keep staring forward, lost in memory.

Her heart constricts at his revelations, squeezing tight with heartbreak at the thought of her partner in his early twenties, having to hear from the tabloids about his wife cheating on him. There are stings of guilt pricking into her heart with the way she acted with Vaughn, but they're overpowered by her sorrow for him. Then there's the rage grasping the ends of her fingers, making her fist want to ball up at the thought of that woman… playing her like that.

"She wasn't even trying to hide it."

She lets out a shaky breath, her longing to comfort him winning out, "Castle…"

"There's more." He stops her, turning to look at her briefly before looking back down between his knees. He pauses, seeing his teeth grind against each other as he forces his eyes closed, his shoulders shaking. With another long breath drawn in, he continues. "I left Alexis with my mother… and went to go get her. Because… like you said, I made a promise that I wouldn't leave her, and I had no intention of breaking it." Her hand goes over her heart, clenching the fabric of her shirt. "I tracked her down in Florida… and went to her hotel room… with a diamond ring in my hand." It's then that she feels a tear leak out onto her cheek. "And I told her that I wanted to give our marriage a second chance, and that I wanted to fix it. And do you want to know what she gave me?" He asks, looking up to her with red brimmed eyes, "Divorce papers."

Her breath is stolen from her, being sucked out of her, her heart shattering in her chest. She's pushing off the island and is sitting down on the coffee table between his legs in an instant, grasping on to his hands, watching his broad shoulders rise and fall with a quake as he tries desperately to hold it all in.

"She shoved them in my hands without a word and closed the door." She lets out a shaky breath, her heart aching right alongside his as his hands tighten in her soft grasp. "That's the part of the story Alexis doesn't know." He admits, capturing her thumbs with his as the caress his hands in caring. "No one does."

She feels her heart pulled toward him. He's never told this to anyone. He's been holding this in his mind for god only knows how long. She knows how things like this fester and boil, how it affects you if left there. And now that she's drawn it out, she can feel his hurt and his pain coming off him in waves.

"So… you can imagine… why I reacted the way I did when you were with Vaughn."

Her whole body wracks as she shudders with guilt. "Castle…" She says in a shaky voice as her eyes get flooded with another wave of heartbreak, "I am… _so… sorry_." She pleads, feeling it more now than ever before. "If I had known this, I _never_ would have even made you think I would have cheated on you. Because I wouldn't. I would _never_ do that to you, Rick."

"Then why did you?" He asks, looking up to her with anger quickly flashing into his still glossy eyes.

She closes her eyes and lets out a heavy breath, squeezing his hands in hers again. "Do you remember how it was when we first got together?" She asks him, looking up to him with a soft smile. "How we could… _barely_ keep our hands off each other? I mean…" She chuckles, "my water bill tripled… overnight… because we were taking so long in the shower."

His firm set frown finally falls away into a smirk as both their minds drift back to those intense few months together.

"And… when you rejected me that night… it… made me think that maybe… you'd…" She struggles with this.

But he pulls it from her, unweaving his hands and entwining them together with his. "What?"

She shrugs her shoulders and looks off to the side, "Lost interest." His brow shoots up in and his head falls down, in shock. "And when Vaughn came in and started…" She trails off, letting go of his hand to wave it in the air, "it was flattering, I guess."

"Okay, after four years' worth of rejections, I think I'm allowed one night, Beckett." He says, finding firmness in his voice again.

And she agrees with a nod, "No, you're right, but… that's why I asked you where we were going that night. And it was _hard_ for me to ask that, Rick." She says, feeling the need to push him on this. "And when you just smirked and threw me off, it… gave me the impression that maybe you weren't as serious as I wanted."

"You do realize that you might have asked at the worst time, right?" He says, catching her off guard again by him finally letting her have some of the blame.

She lets out a shaky breath and feels her shoulders drop, "Did I?" She challenges. "I mean, when _was_ the right time to ask that, Castle? If I had asked you in bed, would you have been willing to get into that conversation then, or would we have just ended up having sex again?"

His brow knots, "What are you saying?"

She shakes her head again, not moving away from him. "Castle, what if… because we only had sex as a way of connecting, when you shot me down… what if that's why it made me question us so much?" His head cocks off to the side a bit, and she feels a need to reassure him, "I'm not saying that it isn't great, because it is, but… did we make a mistake in not pushing for any of this sooner?"

He lets out a long breath out through his nose, his eyes falling down to their hands. "I would have." He tells her, looking up to her. "But with you… I'm so used to just taking what I can get that once I had you…"

She closes her eyes and feels herself sink in. She wanted him to push, and he was afraid of pushing her too far, in fear that he might lose her altogether. She put it on him, thinking he had just lost interest, when… "You didn't have enough faith in yourself to think you could push me anymore."

He can't find her eyes again, looking almost ashamed that she's right.

"Hey." She says just above a whisper, reaching at and cupping his jaw, pulling his eyes up to hers. "I'm not going anywhere. So you can _always_ ask for more out of us."

He tugs a smile onto his lips as his eyes finally soften, "Really?" He asks, sounding vulnerable.

"Always."


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: I love getting trolled by anon guest reviews. You guys seem to think I'm not used to it (which I am far more used to it than you know). I shall wear it like a badge of honor._

* * *

As she lays on her side down the length of her couch, her head down against his thigh with her fingers absentmindedly picking at the edges of his dark designer jeans, she feels a feeling she hasn't felt since they started to drift apart; loving bliss.

With a soft, content smile gracing her lips, her eye lids beginning to feel heavy as she feels the edges of a nap want to take her, his fingers twirling a strand of her hair as he lays in the corner of her couch, they've been sitting like this for at least an hour, in complete silence. And it's been nice. He always was the only man she's ever felt close enough to do this with, and she wouldn't want it to be with anyone else. Although, a nap sounds like a fantastic idea.

She's always loved these lazy days. Those mornings when they'd just find themselves in bed with each other and waste it away, watching the sun light float past the window until a need required too much attention to be ignored. Some of the time it was a member of the Twelfth bugging them or a family member, others it was a case, but most times it was just hunger after a long night of love making.

She lays her fingers down flat against the side of his leg and feels a nag pull at the back of her mind, the reeling in of an idea that won't let go until it's caught once she has it. "Rick." She tests her voice, cutting through the soft silence of her apartment, noised only by the sound of the heater cutting on and off. She pushes her shoulder up and flips herself over onto her back, his leg still her own personal pillow.

She can see him leaned back against the couch cushion with his eyes closed. His Adam's apple moves as he hums out his acknowledgement of her call to him, her eyes following it with a peculiar interest.

"How have you been since I left, really?" She asks, her voice still soft. He lets out a long, deep sigh and lifts his head off the top of the couch cushion, his expression hardening for just a moment before it starts to droop into hurt. "You don't…" She begins, feeling slightly guilty, "have to push yourself, Castle." His brow knits together has he turns down to look at her. "I know how it feels, okay?" She soothes, reaching up behind her to put her hand over his knee.

He shakes his head slowly and looks away. "It's not that, it's just…" He drifts off. He lets out another short breath and seems to cement his decision, hardening himself against the doubt he has of her reaction. "I never knew just how much I would lose if I ever lost you."

She feels her heart sink and turns her head up just a bit more to meet his gaze better, letting her arm slide down his leg. "What do you mean?"

He inwardly rolls his eyes to himself and looks forward. His eyes start to swim, seeming lost in haunting memory. "You know, everyone that's ever been a part of my life…" He starts, and her throat starts to constrict. He's pushing himself. She can see him prying open his heart to her, and she can see that's it's going to be too much. "… has always seen me as a means to an end."

Her heart feels squeezed. "Rick." She gently soothes him, her hand wrapping around his calve muscle. She can see him go back and forth, from his pride wanting to be strong and resilient, to everything else wanting suddenly to go toward the outlet she told him he had with her. "It's okay, babe." She encourages again, her voice steady and soft. "Just… go slow."

He shakes his head again and closes his eyes, craning his neck. "The only people ever to break that pattern… where the guys at the Twelfth… and you." She feels her heart explode into a heartbreaking love for him. "I mean, Ryan and Esposito are the only real friends I've ever had. And working there with you, it was actually meaningful."

"Castle, you didn't have to stop working at the Twelfth just because I wasn't there anymore." She tries.

But he rejects her with a nod. "Yes, I did. Gates made that pretty clear. No Beckett, no Castle." He says, feigning a joking tone. "But even if she didn't kick me out again… there's still…" He drifts off again with a solemn shake of his head, and she stays silent, encouraging him still with her fingers petting his leg. "Beckett, after I killed off Derrick Storm, the only reason I started writing again was because I met you."

She feels a smile tingle at the corners of her lips.

"I mean, the first words I wrote for Nikki Heat back then were the first words I'd written in months. And when you left…" She feels her heart being tugged again. The only times when she'd enjoy waking up alone in bed after falling asleep with him is when she'd see the light emanating from his laptop from his office, being inspired by a dream he had, which he always said was about her. "I haven't written anything since yesterday… when you came by my hotel room."

"Really?" She asks, her heartbreak being betrayed by her flattery.

"I spent… all morning… just staring at that stupid line, blinking me in the face, for hours before you knocked on my door. That's the only reason I ever agreed to do those _stupid_ audio books, was to keep the publishers happy while I dealt with the writer's block. We only saw each other for a few minutes, at most, but… I sat down right as you left and…" His face finally softens, "it all started flowing again."

She can feel her heart being warmed, her spirit being lifted at that.

"Then there was the whole DIY home improvement thing." He says with a lift of his brow, looking down to his hand sitting on the arm of the couch. She awkwardly twists her neck to look at it, seeing him stretch and fan out his fingers. Her forehead creases and she looks back up to him.

"What are you talking about?"

He breathes out a chuckle, "It was stupid." He says as he smirks and shakes his head again. "Let's just say that when you pit a guy who's just gotten his marriage proposal rejected up against an inch worth of sound proof drywall, the drywall wins."

"What?" She asks, her blood starting to race as she turns over and quickly reaches for his hand, grabbing it and bringing to her as she lays on her stomach. She examines his hand with concern, running her fingers gently over his knuckles and down across the top, resting his palm flat against hers. She turns back up to him with a deep arch in her brow, seeing him still forcing a smirk. She can always tell when he has to force it.

"It still hurts when it rains." He says as his fingers twinge a bit in her hands.

"Castle." She pushes.

He cocks his neck off to the side and relaxes his hand in her soft grasp. "Suffice it to say… I've had a rough time since you left also." She just deepens the arch in her brow, trying to convey even more concern for him and his wellbeing than she is already and engulfs his hand in hers. "I refused to take pain medication just because I was afraid I was going to develop an addiction… with everything else I was going through. Alexis bugged me about it constantly."

"Castle, a boxer's fracture can be serious if you don't treat it right." She lectures. "Tell me you went to a doctor."

"Yes, Beckett, I went to a doctor." He answers, pulling his hand out of her grasp like a child who's been needlessly lectured by his mother. "A broken hand gave me something to distract myself from the fact that the love of my life had left." He says, his tone dropping in an instant.

Her heart flutters in her chest again, a tug-of-war being waged between guilt, worry, and love at the fact he keeps calling her that. And honest surprise that it doesn't scare her. She smiles to herself and pushes herself up, crawling across the couch and turning over, coming to rest sitting in his lap, her arm going across his shoulders and her hand softly cupping his jaw.

She finally decides to give into the pull once her hand scratches against the shaven scruff on his jaw. The tingle on her lips, the need, the butterflies in her stomach, the flutter in her heart, it's exactly like how she remembers. Her eyes drift shut as she pulls him to her lips, feeling the air crackle between them as she opens her mouth to him. Her spine twinges with excitement, and explodes with electricity once his lips meet hers in the first kiss they've shared in months, only now realizing just now long they've felt.

Her back crawls with a fireworks display of excited nerves as she sucks in the first breath through her nose that feels like it has pure life in it. Feeling his soft, soft lips respond to her, her heart quivers inside her chest, her lips pressing deeper against him with every passing second they're pressed against his, her thumb caressing the skin just below his eye socket, her arm draped over his shoulders softly tugging him closer to her. As he moves his head against hers to deepen the kiss even further, feeling his hand slide up her spine, the breath that he draws from her turns to a long, deep, throaty moan.

She lets his lips go, albeit reluctantly, still cupping his jaw and pulls back, feeling her lips beg her to return to where they belong, tingle and crawl with unquenched desire. She heavily opens her eyes and sees his lips still puckered, his eyes closed, making her giggle. "What was that for?" He asks, his voice deep and husky, making her stomach flip-flop.

Her thumb reaches over and softly grazes against the territory she had long before claimed as her own, "That was the second time you've called me the love of your life."

His eyes soften, gazing into hers as his other hand finds her thighs that are draped over his legs, his other hand going around to softly grasp her side. He's looking up to her with such love and certainty, she can't miss it. "That's because you are, Kate." Her heart erupts into pieces inside her chest, bursting with the love she has for him, the fact that he's so certain what he feels for her is true. "I've never loved anyone like I love you."

She smiles brightly again, moving her hand from his jaw to his hair. She lets her eyes drift shut and leans forward, leaning her forehead against his. "Castle." She starts, her voice teasing the edges of getting soiled with emotion, her fingers petting their way into his hair, "if there's any man I would say yes to, it would be you." She can feel his breath fan off of her in a quick sigh, "I promise." She pulls back and opens her eyes, seeing his eyes shine with love, yet vulnerable and uncertain. "And when the day comes, I will say yes. But we need to be there first… okay?"

"Then…" He says, his voice tight and strained, his eyes looking to her with longing, his shoulders shaking under her arm for just a brief second before he shakes it all away, shaking his head just once and looking away from her in a short sigh.

"What?" She pushes, not wanting him to shut down now. "You were going to say something, Castle. What was it?"

He looks up to her with yet another forced smirk. "It was nothing."

"It was _not_ nothing, Rick." She says, moving her hand out of his hand and down to his chest. "I know that look when I see it, what were you going to say?"

His shoulders harden under her hand, his expression hardening as he looks away from her. There's a brief, but thick pause between them as he takes in a hard breath, her heart wanting and waiting in anxiousness as to what he wants to tell her, pulling it out from him. He looks back up to her with a stone set expression and is speaking again. "Then come home with me."

* * *

 _A/N: Kind of a slow and short chapter, but felt it was a good place to end it. Let me know though.  
_


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: More badges! Be careful when you guys go outside, I heard sunlight turns your kind to stone. Word for the wise. :)_

* * *

A cold feeling of dread washes through her, her brain stunned, thoughts firing off in her mind that don't put at ease the brunt of his words. She lets out a breath unevenly and pulls her arm out from around his shoulders, looking away. He had that same look in his eyes when he proposed, and she's feeling the exact same way now as she did then. Sensing this and not wanting it to end the same way, she starts, letting out another breath as a chuckle as forcing a smile. "What?"

"Come home with me. Tomorrow." He says again, voice still sure and steady, unlike everything about her right now. It pulls another shaky breath from her, but it hasn't turned into a physical shake yet. "I check out of the hotel at four, my flight leaves at six and I want you to be on it with me."

He isn't backing away from this. She pulled it out of him, wanting him to open up, but she wasn't prepared to deal with the reward her efforts got her. "Castle." She says with a hesitant voice as she pushes herself off his lap and starts slowly around the coffee table to meander around her living room on uncertain footing. She feels the denial set in. "I-I can't, Castle. I have my job, I-I… my apartment was rent-controlled, my job at the NYPD is sure to be filled by now."

"Last I heard, the guy they picked couldn't handle it and quit. I heard that they were eyeing LT for it, but from what Esposito told me, he didn't seem all that interested… and you know what I'm asking you, Beckett." He says, leaning forward and grabbing the edges of her couch in a tight grip. She wanted him to ask more from them, but she thought she was ready for it.

"Castle, I…" She struggles, pressing a hand to her forehead, then running it raggedly through her hair, "I have a life here."

"No, you don't, Kate." He tells her, standing up and slowly starting toward her.

"You don't know that." She fires back, her defensive auto-pilot engaging without her consent against his obvious attack, an assumption he's making… based on what?

He pushes out a hard, frustrated sigh as he steps around the coffee table. "Kate, you think I haven't looked around?" He asks, lifting his hand.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asks, still frustrated as she paces away from him with her hands planted on her hips.

"I know how you like to live, Kate. You'll keep anything that has a memory attached to it, good or bad. It's comforting to you. But…" He says as he turns and paces around her, "it's empty here." She spins around and looks at him, his eyes scanning her walls. Maybe it is a little bare, but she's been working. "There's no pictures, there's no little trinkets, no books." He explains as his eyes stop at a set of shelves against her wall and steps over to it. "This shelf…" He starts, turning around to her to shoot her a glare, "should have no space left on it, Kate. All that's on here are your car keys and one picture of your mother."

"Well, excuse me for not having the time to unpack while I work thirteen hours a day, Castle." She argues, a pick on the back of her mind telling her that it's untrue.

He just steps up to her, unwavering. "You were working just as much when you moved into your old apartment, Kate. You would have found the time."

"Just because I don't have time to decorate doesn't mean I don't have a life here, Rick."

"Then where is the picture of you and your mother ice skating? I know how important that picture is to you, Beckett. And your graduation photo from the academy? What about the one from your sixth birthday party where your dad had you up on his shoulders? I know how important those kinds of things are to you, Kate."

"Yes, they're important to me, but just because it's a little bare here doesn't mean I can uproot my whole life just because you come back for two days." She shouldn't have said that. She can tell he just bit back a hard stab of heartbreak with the way his eyes just twinged, the way he just bit the inside of his lip. And her guilt from what she just said is enough for the second guess that's been clawing at her to gain a foothold. Maybe he's right. Those pictures are important to her.

"You said that I didn't have to be afraid to ask more from us, well…" He says, his voice losing all its confidence, "now I'm asking."

Her breath is quick and uneven in her throat as she unhooks her hands from her hips and looks away, folding her bottom lip in between her teeth. "Castle, I-I…" She stutters again, but he's continuing on again, taking another step toward her, his hands looking as if they want to pull her in, but stop short.

"You said that you wanted this to work, Kate."

"And I do." Her softer side sneaks past her defenses.

"Then we need to be together while we work on it, don't we?"

She grits her teeth, biting back what she wants to say off handedly. She needs to be soft with him. He put his heart on the line by doing this, she knows that much, and he's willing to put up a fight for it, push for it. She can't just shoot him down, even if she isn't entirely sure, which she isn't. She gulps her fears down and reaches over, grabbing onto his trembling hands, looking up to his fearful eyes. "I'll think about it."

His eyes shut and he starts to nod off, but she squeezes his hands.

"Hey." She whispers, calling for him again. He opens his eyes again and she smiles softly to reassure him. "I'm not saying no, okay? I'm just saying I need to think about it." His sad eyes and slightly pitiful expression tells her he's still taking it as a no, which isn't what she's saying. "You… you're asking a lot of me right now, and… you have to admit, it's a big step… right?" She asks, lowering her head and shuffling into him just a bit more, being drawn to him by her need to comfort him. "I'm _not…_ saying no. I'll think about it. I promise."

There's a backdrop of acceptance in his face, but still lingering doubt wanting to take hold. His hands keep grasping and ungrasping hers. It's not what he wanted to happen, she can tell that much. But she can't just up and agree to uproot everything she's tried to make here just because he's back for one weekend. And she does need to think about it.

"Hey." She whispers again, swinging their hands together, wanting to at least cheer him up, give him hope. "Kiss me again." He closes his forces another soft smirk. But she steps into him and presses up to meet his lips nonetheless. His kiss feels drawing and life-giving, like it always does, something about it feels faraway. So as he lets her lips go in a soft pluck, she goes after him again, stealing another kiss from him. She's missed him.

She leans down and sees his smirk isn't as forced as it was before her lips kissed it away. "I better go." He says, dropping a weight of letdown on her. "Let you decide."

She grabs his hands a little tighter as she feels them want to pull away. "You don't have to go, Castle. I said I have to think about it, that doesn't mean I want you to leave." She says, being as light hearted about it as she can.

He just pushes his smirk a little wider and shakes his head. "I have some things I've held off doing anyway." She can't really tell if he's being truthful, but she wants to believe him, wants to believe that it's not just his dire need to be anywhere but here right now.

So she nods. "Okay." He turns and goes to gather up his coat and scarf, quickly tossing them on, with her grasping the ends of his scarf as he stands at the door. "I love you, Castle." She says, her tone saying it as a casual goodbye, as if they've been saying it for years.

His soft smirk takes the other side of his lips as he smiles. "I love you too." He says in the same tone and lets her pull him down to her lips again, a chaste yet lingering kiss shooting her spine straight as he pulls away and goes out the door into the cold.

She places a hand on the door as he leaves, leaving it there for a moment as she turns around to her apartment, giving it a slow onceover. Maybe he was right, maybe it is a little barren here. But that doesn't necessarily mean that she doesn't have a life here… does it?

She goes on about the rest of her day quietly, going into a small box shoved into the back of her closet to pull out the pictures he mentioned. He was right. She would have found the time if she was serious about it. Soon after, she finds herself in bed, grabbing onto that same burgundy pillow and hugging it to her chest.

She soon drifts off to sleep at the scent of it.

* * *

As she feels her eyes flutter open, seeing a bright light filter in through her bedroom window, she groans as she feels dread at the thought of being awake, tightening her grip on the pillow hugged to her chest. Taking in a long whiff, it smells like him again, making her smile. Until she strains her encrusted eyes to look at the clock. " _Crap!"_

She's out of bed in a flash at the time, cursing and muttering swears to herself at forgetting to set the alarm. She's dressed and ready right as the clock hits 8:50. She's pulling her hair back into her usual tight pony tail when she's making her way down the hall and into the kitchen. She hasn't been late for work since she was in New York, dragging herself out of her boyfriend's luxurious king size bed. The only thing that catches her off guard besides the time this morning is the dishes, left unattended from the morning before.

The memory and emotion she received from him offering her a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning, along with presenting a breakfast he made for her with just her in mind flashes in her mind, forcing her to pause at the fact that he's not here this morning. But she can still see him, the mornings she woke up to find all that waiting for her before, the mornings when he found it waiting for him, the mornings when they never bothered and just decided to make love instead.

She grinds her teeth, grabs her effects, and whisks out the door as fast as she can, speeding her way toward the office. She's going through the metal detector at twenty passed nine and is taking the elevator up with a swarm of other suits doing exactly that. It isn't until now that she realizes just how everyone looks right passed her. She usually arrives before anyone is here, but this morning, something feels… off. Her memory has decided to haunt her all morning.

Then his request comes floating into her mind. She still hasn't decided, and she only has a few hours left to decide, if she does at all.

The ding of the elevator doors brings her out of her thoughts, and she pushes passed a few silent figures standing in her way, taking long, quick strides down the hall as she catches McCord just getting up from her desk, on her way to the kitchen. " _Sorry…_ I am late." She apologizes as she tosses her bag down at her desk.

"You've really been pushing the envelope lately, Beckett."

"I know, I'm sorry. I forgot to set my alarm last night. Anything happen?" She asks, putting everything else aside as she stands up, tugging on her blazer as her eyes follow McCord, who's stopped with a smirk.

"Well, the Italian ambassador received a death threat along with some photos, they think it came from overseas, but they asked us to look domestically."

"Great, so… where do we start?" She asks, ready and willing to just delve into it.

McCord just smiles again, "Actually, they handed it off to Gomez's team."

Her racing, steeled heart softens, slowing down as the anticipation gets killed. "Oh…" She says, feeling her tenseness relax, a thought occurring to her. "Who is that again?" She asks, feeling… she doesn't know what.

McCord just keeps smiling and points her phone over Beckett's shoulder, toward the back corner of the office. Beckett turns, seeing the stout, short haired Hispanic, looking over someone's shoulder. She feels stupid, she recognizes him, and she should know his name. Maybe he was more right than she gave him credit for yesterday. Maybe she hasn't really tried to settle down here. But that isn't necessarily because she doesn't want to… she's just been too focused on her job to make friends, that's all.

Deciding that, if nothing is really pressing, now's a good a time as any to at least make an attempt. She follows McCord into the kitchen and slowly takes a seat as McCord goes to the coffee pot. "So…" Beckett starts, somewhat nervously, "where were you before this?"

McCord chuckles despite herself, "Me? I was a… pencil pusher at Quantico for a few years until they gave me a shot as a field agent. I transferred to the AG's office after I was passed up for a profiler position, saw it as a change of scenery." She explains as she pours two cups of coffee. "The funny part is…" She starts again, walking slowly over to her with a cup in her hand, "the guy they passed me over for quit just a few months after I came here. Said he couldn't cut it, went to white collar crime for the nine to five."

A solemn look fades into McCord's eyes as she stands in front of her. She's never been one to easily regret a decision… why is she now?

"I've always regretted leaving there. I would have gone back, but… I told myself it was in the past, so I never bothered." She lets out another spiteful chuckle and shakes her head. "Cut to… being stuck here for thirteen years, in my mid-forties and single." She says humorlessly, but with a joking tone.

"Stuck? What do you mean stuck?" Beckett asks, not bothering with the coffee she was given.

"Well, pretty much everything higher than an average field agent is chosen by the Attorney General, and has to be confirmed by Congress, and since that usually changes every four years with the politics, people don't usually go into those posts with five year plans." McCord explains offhandedly.

But it hits Beckett deep, disappointment driving coldly into her system as she looks away. If this is all she can expect out of this job… one of the Lieutenants at the Twelfth was thinking about taking an early retirement, that would have put her on the short list for whenever Gates decides to do the same. Plus… there was everything else about the Twelfth. It was her... her home.

"They didn't tell you that, did they?" McCord asks next to her, cutting into her string of thoughts, making her do something she just isn't built to do. Regret her decisions, question her choices.

All she can do is draw in hard breaths, her shoulders tight as she battles with herself. "You know, I always thought that if something like this came along, I would always regret not going after it." She says, looking back up to McCord, who's sadly smiling back at her. "But… I never thought I would regret leaving this much." She swallows the rising tide of emotions and looks down to the rim of her cup. "I mean… I'm not built to second guess myself… to admit that I made a mistake with my life. The same thing happened with Castle." She says, thinking back to that night, incredible as it was, it still shouldn't have had to happen that way. "It took me getting thrown from a roof top for me to admit that I was wrong in not being with him sooner."

There's a thick pause, a heavy silence that fills the air of the kitchen, until McCord cuts through it, "Something happened this weekend, didn't it?"

She smiles briefly as the thought of him sparks into her mind. "I went to go see him, and… we spent the weekend together." She explains with a full smile. "We agreed that we wanted to work things out, and long story short… he wants me to move back to New York with him."

"Well, sounds like you're decided then." McCord says with a lift in her voice, taking a sip of her coffee.

"No, I'm not." She pushes, not totally believable even to her own ears.

"Does that mean I have to throw you off the roof to get you to see it then?"

"No, it-"

"Beckett, I know people like us. I was the same way. And if this guy is special enough that two days with him even has you _questioning_ your decisions, he must be pretty special."

"Yes, he's incredibly special, but that doesn't mean that I can just… give up everything here."

McCord just narrows her eyes toward her, tucking the corners of her mouth in and makes for the door. "Supervisor's in his office."

* * *

He swallows, struggling to settle his nerves, trying… just _trying_ to stamp out the embers of doubt that want to consume him. He pushes up his sleeve and looks at his watch again, looking at the time. He grits his teeth, physically biting back the urge to shout as he lets out a short hiss. His muscles flex, his whole body tensing as he tries his hardest to extinguish the doubts he has.

She pried something out of him that he thought he had buried and forgotten, never wanting to just admit that it was the root of everything. But once she did, it was like all his protections just became obsolete, everything he's ever told himself to comfort himself just becoming null and void as she ripped it out of him. She was delicate with him, he could tell that, not wanting to push him too far after their fight, but the glimmer in her eyes, the light, the pull she has on him, wanting to be connected on a deeper level with him, wanting him to really open up… she gave that to him, and he fell for her with a quickness. Quicker and harder than he has for anyone else.

But now, he's late. Maybe he was mistaken in just putting it all on the line again. She clearly wasn't ready for that, and he doesn't know why he thought she would be. Maybe he could have went about it a different way when he was telling her about her apartment. But if he was writing that apartment as the setting to a story, it would be one of someone who doesn't want to settle down, someone who's keeping memories buried so they don't have to face them. That's not the Kate Beckett he knows.

But he was clearly wrong. He lets out a deep sigh as his heart grows cold, picking up his suitcase by the top handle and slinging it over his shoulder, leaving the room key on the coffee table. She said he could always ask for more of them… always. She should know what that means to them. He just opens the door to the hotel room and drags himself out the door, turning around to close it behind him.

"Am I too late?"

Her voice slices through him, melting away the frost that formed around his heart. He freezes, the hair on the back of his neck up on end, his heart starting to race as he turns to look down the hall. He can see her standing there, no more than ten feet away, her hair let down in soft curls, her eyes glimmering. The next thing his eyes find is the bag in her hand.

In that second, everything else shuts down. He lets his suitcase fall to the floor with a clatter, his legs demanding they move toward her. She smiles brightly and quickly strides toward him, her bag quickly falling to the floor as she throws her arms out. He flies into her, his arms throwing themselves around her slender frame, lifting her up in the air with ease, feeling pulled together by the feeling of her squeeze his neck with as much strength as she can muster, her breath going against the skin on his neck in a long, shaky sigh.

She hooks her leg around his, finding her voice as her breath turns to an emotional laugh. Maybe he shouldn't doubt himself after all. Maybe she meant it all. Maybe he is real enough for her. As he buries his face in the crock of her neck, he feels himself consumed by love for her.

Maybe it's worth loving her this much.

* * *

 _A/N:Not ending it here. Going to delve deeper, touch on a few other issues. Don't exactly know how long it will run, but looking forward to it.  
_

 _I never understood why the writers bothered to write the cases in this story ark to make Beckett question whether what she was doing was the right thing, whether it was what she thought it was or not, and then just have it be nullified by her getting fired. Never mind, Castle just bending over backward and enabling her by buying an apartment in DC, which I never understood if they knew full well they were going to have her fired. Seemed like a waste, and a step backward in their relationship. They could have fixed this whole story ark in the last five minutes of the third episode, but as always, it's up to us._

 _Let me know what you think anyway. :)_


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: Might get some mixed reviews on this chapter. Some might feel it's too out of character, but others might love it. Don't know, let me know either way. :)_

* * *

"Okay, I'm _so_ getting these."

"Castle, what are you going to do with glow-in-the-dark snow shoes with headlights on them?"

"What am I _not_ going to do with glow-in-the-dark snow shoes with headlights on them?" He asks, quirking his brow up to her, flipping through the SkyMall magazine with childlike wonderment and glee. She's missed this; his lighter, humorous, at times annoying side. Sometimes, it's this side of him she needs the most. To just be around him to make her life fun and joyful, which he is doing right now as she shakes her head despite herself and looks back out the window to the sun setting across the horizon.

It's another couple of minutes, sitting silently in first class, her hand softly wrapped in his, her soul being soothed by the feeling of his thumb brushing across the smooth slopes of her knuckles, before a light pair of rapid footsteps comes running down the aisle. It doesn't catch her full attention until she hears the loud thud of someone falling to the ground and a light grunt. "Whoa." Castle says next to her, a light lift in his voice. She turns and sees him quickly leaning forward to help the small boy up off the floor of the plane. "You alright there?" He asks, helping the boy up, leaning over the arm of his seat. The boy lets out a small grunt as he gets up off the floor of the plane, nodding somewhat nervously. "Alright, good. You should be more careful, you're gonna get yourself in trouble."

She smiles over to him, watching as Castle leans back in his seat. After a moment, the boy looks down and bends over, picking up a small action figure up off the floor, holding one piece in one hand, its arm in the other, a solemn, hurt look going across his face.

"Aww, that's no good." Castle starts again. "Mind if I…?" He asks, extending his hands.

"Sure." He answers smally, his short wavy brown hair drifting into his eyes. He can't be more than five or six.

Castle smiles and takes the pieces of the boy's broken toy, sticking out his tongue as he examines it, easily pushing the toy's arm back into place. "There we go, good as new." He says, his fatherly tone coming through in waves. "Transformers! Nice." He continues, handing the toy back to the little boy.

"Yeah, Optimus Prime's my favorite." The boy says, looking down at his newly repaired toy.

"Nah, Hotshot's better." Castle says back, waving his hand at the boy.

"Henry!" A female voice calls from down the aisle. All sets of eyes, including Kate's, goes to the woman coming down the aisle of the plane, looking between worried and frustrated. "What have I told you about wandering off?" The boy's mother scolds, coming up to him and bending over, putting her hands on her son's shoulders.

"Sorry, Mommy."

The boys mother let's out a breathy laugh and pets his hair, the looks over to them. "I'm sorry, was he bothering you?"

"Oh no, he's no trouble at all." Castle says with a bright smile. "My daughter could never sit still on a plane either."

"He fixed Optimus, Mommy." He says, looking up to his mother, presenting her the toy in his hand.

"Oh, well… did you thank... uh…" The mother starts, but stutters as she looks over to Castle again. After a few seconds, Castle looking up to her with an expectant smile, the mother grins and points a finger at him. "You wouldn't happen to be Richard Castle, would you?"

This might be the first time he's gotten recognized out of nowhere with her. Kate smiles agape and looks over to him. "Yeah, that's me."

The mother lets out a breath of delight as she smiles. "Oh, I'm reading Heat Rises now. It's _so_ good."

"I'm glad you like it." He says simply with a nod.

"Well, we're going to go back to our seats. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Castle." She says, extending a hand for a light handshake. "Say thank you, Henry." She says, giving her son's shoulders a quick shake.

"Thank you." The boy says, beginning to hide himself in his mother's pant leg.

Castle just brightens his smile and waves as they move up the aisle back to their seats. Once his smile softens, she reaches over with a hand, softly touching his chin and drawing him to her for a soft, light kiss, lasting for longer than she intended it to. She pulls back after a few seconds of lingering and opens her eyes, seeing his soft smile still plastered across his face. "What was that for?" He asks.

She shrugs her shoulders and smiles. "You've just always been good at that."

"What, kissing?"

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, "No, kids." His smiles brightens as he chuckles, his eyes lighting up even more than they already are. "I mean…" She shakes her head, a tug at her heart wanting to get into this discussion. "The way you are with Alexis was the first thing that made me think there was more there under all that… bravado. You being a father was the first thing that made me start seeing you a different way."

His smile softens, but warms. "You know, when Meredith first told me she was pregnant, she thought she was giving me bad news."

Her brow scrunches together. "Really? You guys didn't plan to have kids?"

"Oh, of course not. I mean, I hinted at it a few times when we first got married, but she always just shrugged it off. She never really gave it any serious thought, but… when it happened… she thought she was giving me bad news, but there's nothing she could have said that would have made me any happier." He says, his voice quickly softening as he dives into his memory.

She just looks upon with loving reverence, letting him continue.

"It took me weeks to convince her that her being pregnant was a blessing, but… she had her doubts up until she went into labor. Meredith never had any interest in being a parent. She never wanted that kind of responsibility. But, you know, I've always wanted to, so…" He drifts off, his eyes bright and lost in memory. "You know, you hear people say that their lives changed the instant they first held their child, but… I was in love with Alexis the instant I saw her on the first ultrasound."

She feels her words rise up to her throat, but stop short, her nervousness getting to her. "So…" She starts, catching his attention as his smile softens, "would you do it again?" Her heart stops, nervous about getting into this with him. She's never even been willing to consider it with anyone else besides him.

"You really want to talk about this so soon?" He asks, his voice lifting in hesitant concern for pushing too far.

But it somehow relaxes her. At least he's nervous about it too. She shrugs her shoulders and awkwardly turns her body toward him, tucking her hands between her legs. "Well, when I asked where we were going, this was part of what I was asking, so… would you?"

"Would _you_?"

She chuckles and shakes her head. "I asked you first."

"I don't want what I have to say to influence you're decision." He says, his tone dropping and expression hardening.

She nods, accepting it, and thinks. "Well… I… never really gave it much thought… to be honest. I always thought I would end up with someone who didn't want that, but…" She drifts off, trying her hardest to give him an honest answer. "Putting the doubts I have on my mothering abilities aside for now… I'm pretty sure I'd want kids, yeah." She looks back up to him, seeing him smiling warmly over to her, casting away her nervousness about the ordeal. "So… what about you?"

He lets out a short sigh and looks down to his lap. "You know, the second I had Alexis in my arms for the first time after the doctor handed her to me, I knew then that I would gladly do anything to make sure she was safe. I knew in that instant… that I would do anything to make sure that I was always there if she ever needed me, and… if I were to do that again," He says, looking over to her, seriousness exuding from him, "then I would have to know that you would do the same thing."

She gulps, feeling a heavy brunt of his words hit her. "What do you mean?" She asks, words tight as they get squeezed out her throat.

"Kate… as hard as it is for me to cope with the thought of you running off after something, whatever that may be, and having you stolen from me because of it, I absolutely refuse to put my child through having their mother stolen from them. And… if anyone should understand that better than anyone else, I think it would be you."

She swallows past the lump in her throat and looks down, nodding. She knows what it's like to be robbed of her mother, and wouldn't wish that on anyone… especially not her own child. She can feel her heart quiver as he finally lets his point show itself.

"Being a father has been the best experience of my life, and if there's one person I could choose to share that experience with again, it would be you, Kate. Because despite what you tell yourself, I think you would be a terrific mother, and… that change that happens is something you can't control, but… I have to know if you would be willing to accept it."

She feels her doubts, her need to shell up and hide start to quickly wall herself in, but she's brought out of it by him lifting his hand, his palm facing her, silently asking for her hand. Without a sound, she pulls her hand out and places it in his, feeling put back together by his wrapping his strong fingers around hers.

"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything," He starts softly, slightly leaning forward to capture her eyes, as they look down shamefully at their enjoined hands, "nor am I trying to cast doubts on your abilities of being a mother, because I think you'd be a great mother. Because the truth is if it were given to me, I'd jump at the chance to be a father again, and I'd jump a lot harder if it were with you. I'm just trying to get you to understand that I will not let my child be robbed of their mother."

She finally gives in and finds his eyes, surprising herself in finding nothing but love and comfort radiating from them. She expected him to be glaring at her, but he's not. He's trying to comfort her, ease her doubts. And she understands what he's saying. She knows that if she were to have a child with him, it would change her. And he's asking if she'd be willing to let that change happen. So, she nods slowly, acceptingly. "Okay."

"And…" He says, his tone shifting out of seriousness, "it would be totally worth it just to see you try and feed mushed carrots to a baby who's just as stubborn as you are."

With that, a smile erupts onto her face, her silent laughter quickly overtaking her as she doubles over her arm rest, her head falling down onto his shoulder. "Yeah, well, we'll see who's going the target for whenever he decides to spit it up." She smirks. He chuckles under his breath and squeezes her hand again, and the light, joking air between them fades, leaving her to feel… confident. She pulls his hand over to her and puts her other hand against his, sandwiching it between hers in a gesture of wanting him to accept her. "I understand, Castle."

He smiles softly and answers with a small nod.

"I wouldn't put any child through what I went through… least of all ours. And… you're right, if I can do anything to make sure I'm there for our kids, when the time comes… I, at the very least, am willing to let that change happen." His smile widens to both sides of his lips and she leans down, pressing a quick kiss to his knuckles before she brushes it off with her thumb. "I'm guessing you didn't ask any of this from Meredith." She says, eyes still on their hands.

"I didn't have a choice with Meredith. It was a…" He says, shaking his head, "take what you can get situation with her. But… that's why I'm asking you. I got very lucky with Alexis, in that she turned out far better than I thought she would whenever Meredith finally started to realize that she had no real interest in being a mother, and that Meredith decided to do that to her own daughter at the age when she wouldn't be too emotionally affected by it. Meredith leaving when she did was probably the best thing that could have happened to Alexis, if I'm being honest, but… you're not Meredith."

She pushes out a chuckle, rolling her eyes to herself.

"Having a family was never in Meredith's interests, so I never expected Meredith to be that much of a mother, looking back on it, but… if having a family is what you want, then," He pauses again, his voice softening, and she squeezes his hand again, silently wanting him to continue, "then I would want it to be something you wouldn't give up for the world."

She smiles softly again, opening her mouth to tell him that he's right, and that she agrees, but a ringing over their heads stops her, the stewardess announcing they're landing, leaving her to her thoughts. If she is ready to pledge not to give him up by marrying him, then she should be ready not to give their family up.

* * *

 _A/N: Another little short chapter, but wanted to just dedicate one chapter to this one issue. Felt it to be bigger than what most others perceived it as._


	10. Chapter 10

"You're sure about this?" He asks, hands and arms filled with their luggage.

"Castle, you have been pestering me about this since baggage claim." She wans. She just wants him to know that she doesn't regret this. He just can't seem to let it get to him, even now as they stand in the hallway outside his loft… their home. She feels a smile pull itself onto her features at the thought.

"Well, Beckett, I know that-"

"Castle." She stops him, stepping up to him and putting her hands on his neck. "For the last time, yes I am sure about this, no I don't have any regrets quitting the AG's office, yes I want to do this, and I will figure out what to do with my stuff that's still in DC tomorrow. Because tonight," She softens her voice, petting his jaw with her thumb, "I want… to go home." She says, eyes slowly panning over his shoulder to the door.

He smiles, his eyes shining over to her as a confident acceptance lights up his face. She can feel his loving warmth radiate off him, pulling her in. "Then could you get the door?" He asks kindly, quenching the embers of his magnetic pull. She chuckles breathlessly and steps around him, opening the door, stepping aside to leave him to set their bags down heavily in the foyer. She gives in to the desire for physical contact as she pushes the door closed, sliding her fingers against his back, running them up his spine as he stands back up.

He looks over to her with a twinkle in his eye as she feels the shiver go up his spine. He turns to her with extended arms, and her body crawls with anticipation. "Oh, thank god you're home, Richard." A familiar voice cuts through the loft, wafting down from upstairs, quickly discharging the air between them. "There's a…" Martha stops. Kate looks up with a nervous smile to Castle's mother, standing near the top of the stairs in her usual colorful garments. "Kathrine." She lifts, her voice warm and welcoming.

Kate smiles brightly as Martha starts down the stairs, her heart warmed by what a welcoming home this is, as it's always been. She did have insecurities about what her sudden presence would do to the balance formed here, his family is always been so important to him, she wouldn't feel as at home as she is now if there were tension because of her being here. But now, watching Martha start drifting down the stairs quicker than she should, all that is dispelled.

"When Richard told us that he was bringing us home gifts from our nation's capital, I had no idea that he meant you. Oh, you beautiful-" She stops, extending her arms to wrap Kate in a hug, but her son steps in front of her, blocking her pursuit.

"Mother…" He warns lowly. "Beckett and I are very tired."

"No, Castle," Kate stops him, stepping out from behind him with a hand on his shoulder, "it's okay. Hi, Martha." She greets with a friendly smile, stepping around him to return Martha's hug.

Martha squeezes her tight, shaking her from side to side. "Oh, you," she starts, leaning back with hands grasping her arms, "are the brightest thing to set foot in this dark, lonely loft since last you were here, Darling. Ah, and look." Martha points, looking over to Castle, who's standing a few feet away with a smile on his face. "I haven't seen my son smile like that in months."

"Mother…"

"Oh, Richard," She waves him off, stepping away to stand between the two of them, "you have spent six months moping around this loft, Kathrine steps in here one minute and…" Martha sashays her way into the loft with a smile, "has brought life back. I swear, I could have found more lively people in one of those awful retirement homes. Kathrine, I assure you, your visit is most welcomed, and definitely most needed, if I'm being honest."

Kate stops taking in Martha's welcoming assessment, "Well, actually-"

"Mother." Castle says again, taking a slow step toward her. "Can I have a word with you, please?" He asks in a low, overly polite voice, lifting a hand toward the kitchen. Martha lifts her brow and looks between the couple and isn't given the opportunity to give a response before she's being led there by Castle.

Kate stops at his side before he leaves her, placing a hand on his back, "I'm gonna go unpack a few things, okay?" She says, reaching up and kissing his cheek against his smile and stepping away, her fingers lingering against him as she steps toward the pile of luggage. She grabs her small bag with her essentials in it and makes her way toward his office to go into… she feels a smile break out onto her face as she thinks of it as their bedroom.

She looks back and tells that he's waiting for her to be out of the room to start his conversation with his mother. She notices and quickly goes through his office and into their bedroom, setting her bag down next to the dresser. She stops and takes a deep breath, feeling a tingle in her heart. She's really doing this. She looks over the bedroom, the memories they've shared here, it might as well have been her home before all this happened anyway.

She just shakes her head and slowly goes through his office, her eyes dancing over the space in new reverence. Her heart feels at peace, comfortable and confident in her decision, until her eyes find something, sitting in the center of his desk, sending a shot of adrenaline through her veins at the sight of it. She slowly steps up, her eyes not leaving the small, black felt box sitting in the center of the desk. Her breath only going as far as her throat, she shakily reaches down and picks it up, feeling as if it's the one thing in here she would get in trouble for touching.

Her fingers wrap around the bottom as her thumb puts pressure on the top, her heart fluttering as she wars between opening it and not opening it. She never even saw the ring he offered her, everything else going wrong prevented her from it. She feels the tight hinges on the box start to give, until she hears the unmistakable sound of his footsteps coming through the living room. Panicking, her breath catches as she balls up the box in her fist and turns around, slipping the box in the pocket of her coat, smiling brightly at him as he enters his office. "Sorry about that." He grimaces as he steps up to her.

She waves him off, her hand landing on his forearm. "No, it's alright, Castle. I knew what I was in for when I agreed to this."

His hesitant frown quickly fades into a loving smile, gazing over to her, the tenseness in his shoulders flying off. "I'm glad you did."

She smiles, looks down between then and pulls on his forearm, stepping into him and snakes her arms around his neck. "Me too." His arms find their way around her, holding her snugly to him. She feels her stomach start to coil, her need for him gaining more and more territory with each passing second. She can feel her lips pulling her toward him, her body reacting to a kiss that hasn't happened yet.

He moans as he weaves his arms around her tighter, her chest crawling at the feeling his voice reverberating through her. "This has been the longest six months of my life."

She lets out a shaky breath, fanning off him. Overall, they've been doing well. They've been communicating, talking things out, moving forward… but she's already getting wrapped up in him again. And she's wrapping him up in her. She doesn't want to have to go back to square one. Her body still aching, she goes against it, against every single muscle fiber in her telling her that she just needs this, and puts her hand on his cheek, her thumb touching his lips as she pushes him back.

He pulls back, opening his eyes and finding fear. "What?"

She can't answer him, her eyes now drawn to his lips, feeling the softness against her thumb, brushing her hand over his jaw, her other hand gripping his shoulder. "I don't want this to end." She pushes in a small, scared voice.

"What are you talking about?" He asks, chuckling unaware.

"You know us, Castle." She starts, leaning down from her toes being pressed up with little effort from his arms supporting most of her weight. "We've been making so much progress. And we…" She feels her desire betray her for a second as she presses against him more, "are so weak for each other." She tells him, looking up to him, finding worried gaze. "I don't want us getting so wrapped up in each other that we let all that fall to the wayside. Because then we're right back where we started."

"Kate, we haven't been together in months. You can't expect me to believe you haven't felt it just as much as I have." He argues.

She lets out a shaky breath, "No, Castle, I do." She tells him, the hand grasping his shoulder moving across his back, her other going against the nape of his neck. "I really do." She continues, pulling herself up to him, her lips drawing themselves to his, "Because…" She ends up with her forehead resting against his, her voice breathy and soft, "I miss you, baby." Her desire speaking, her loving need for him, it only being him who could make her feel the way she does, the way she wants, needs.

His arms squeeze her slender frame again, his bicep bulging into her side, their breaths tangling together hotly between them for a few intense seconds before he lets out a sigh, staying silent, laying his forehead against hers until he pulls back. "What if I make you a promise?" She acknowledges him with a lift in her brow. "We do this… and you can ask me anything, and I will give you as honest an answer as I can."

With that, she feels her unquenchable passion for him die down into annoyance and surprise at him. "You're _bribing_ me with opening up to me just to get sex?"

"For the key to the _prison_ that has been six months' worth of sexual frustration? Yes, I think I'm willing to bend my moral principles just a little bit."

She bits her lip, weighing her options as her hands refuse to let him go. "You promise?"

"Always."

With that word, her heart, her mind, her body, everything give in. "Deal."

* * *

"Mmm…" She moans, muscles happily sated, her entire body blissfully achy and weak.

"That was almost worth the six month wait." He mumbles, blankly staring up at the ceiling next to her.

She tiredly laughs, rolls her head over to look at him. It feels incredible to be next to him like this again. To her body's protest, she skootches herself over to him and rolls onto her side, leaning her head down on her knuckles, looking down to him with a smile. "No flattery, you have a promise to keep." She says, brushing her toes down his leg.

He smiles and readjusts his head on his pillow, looking up to her. "I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. Ask me anything."

She pauses, biting the inside of her lip, thinking back to something she had said to her old partner in DC. "I want us to fight."

His brow knits together as his head cocks off to the side, "What?"

"I want us to be able to fight." She reiterates.

"What are you talking about?" he asks, still wanting clarification.

"Well, you have a history of just walking away when I screw things up."

"And you have a history of _lying_ to me." He fires back.

But she softens his accusation by placing her hand on his bicep. "I know that. Neither of us can promise that we won't screw up when we get married, and I need to know that when it happens that you won't just walk away."

"What makes you say that?" He asks, still being on the defensive.

"Rick, when you found out about my interview, you walked out of my apartment. These six months might never have happened if you had just stayed that night and we had fought it out. When you found out that I lied about my shooting, you walked away. And while I wouldn't give up our first night together for anything, it didn't have to happen that way if you had just fought with me about it." His eyes soften, turning down to look down the blankets covering them. "If there's a problem in our marriage, Castle, we can't just walk away from it." His jaw clicks off to the side, and she can feel his muscles tense under her fingers. "Why, did… you and Meredith fight a lot?"

"No, me and Gina."

Her breath turns thick in her throat as he finally lets some light shine on why he doesn't want to just agree to fight with her on things. She hesitates, not wanting to push too far, before she speaks. "You… you want to tell me about it?" He lets out a deep sigh again and lifts his head off the pillow for a second. "I'm not forcing you, Castle, I'm just asking."

"Well… while Meredith owns the blame in our divorce… I have to own most of the blame in my divorce with Gina." She softly grasps his arm and starts to shake her head, but he lifts his hand to stop her reassurance. "No, I'm not just saying that. I'm aware enough to know that it was mostly my fault."

She nods slightly, loosening her grasp on his arm, coming to soothe over one of his veins with her forefinger. He takes a few deep breaths before taking the plunge and diving into his story.

"Alexis was just turning nine when Gina and I started dating. It was casual, just… between friends really. Derrick Storm was just starting to take off, and Gina had promised to watch Alexis if I agreed to go on tour. So… that's what happened. And eventually, I saw an opportunity to put my family back together… give Alexis her mother back… so to speak. So… I proposed, and we got married. It was fine for about a year before I noticed we had started fighting a lot. And we weren't even fighting to resolve anything, we just fought. In my heart… I knew why, but wouldn't let myself admit it." He pauses, his teeth snapping shut.

She pets his arm with her hand in a long, loving motion. "What?"

He breathes a hard, short breath before continuing. "I was never really in love with her, so I… didn't trust her enough not to do to Alexis what Meredith did. So despite her doing what I married her for, I wouldn't let her. And, to my credit, I did take us to counseling when we started to sleep in separate beds, but…" He drifts off with a sad shake of his head, "all that did was make me realize that I married her for the wrong reasons. We split up 'amicably' after that." He says, using air quotes.

She feels her lips being tugged into a smile, her hand pausing on his arm. "Are you in love with me?"

He looks over to her, a soft smile and bright eyes. "More and more every day."

"And I promised that I'm not leaving again, right? That I'm here to stay?"

"…Yeah."

She looks down the sheets, and reaches for his hand, lacing her fingers in together with his and pulls their hands up between them. "I love you, Castle. And if I screw up, I want you to call me on it. Same goes for me, okay?" His soft, wonderment smile is her answer, and she leans down to capture it, kissing him briefly, but he's going after her as she pulls away, drawing her back down, and she gives in, sinking her lips back down against his.

After a few more sweet motions, she pulls back after she feels him stop. "Will we get to make up afterwards?"

"Always."

"Deal."

* * *

 _A/N: If you guys want a deleted scene, I'll write one when I complete the story. If not, let your imagination run wild. :)_


	11. Chapter 11

This is the first time he's felt this heavenly since the last time he had her nakedly cuddled into his side.

It's even better than he remembers it being. The memories of them felt tainted in his mind after the rejected proposal. Even now, there are lingerings of doubt surrounding them. It's been wanting to drip into his mind ever since he woke up. He's been keeping it at bay by his fingers petting the soft, warm skin on her shoulder, the feeling of having this angel hugged into his side, sleeping the sleep of the dead on top of him, her head resting peacefully on his chest, her arm draped heavily across his abdomen, her bare, toned leg vined together with his.

He's been laying like this for at least an hour and a half, just watching her sleep. It's getting late into the morning, but he doesn't want to wake her, and wouldn't forgive himself if it was the motions of his fingers that woke her. Finding those sleeping pills, her telling him that she hasn't been able to get a decent nights rest since she bought his audio book, just to hear his voice in the room with her, which was only released late last week.

He made sure that his mother made herself as scarce as possible today, especially this morning. The last thing he needs is his mother buzzing around Beckett's head like a fruit fly, scaring her off. She was almost ecstatic over the fact that Kate was moving in, that his son was putting his life back together with the woman he loves, but he made her swear to take it as slow as he deems necessary to help ease the transition. And letting her sleep in as late as possible is probably the best start he can think of or hope for now.

She hasn't even stirred at all since he woke up. She's just been blowing slow, cool breaths down the expanse of his chest, and the later the clock ticks, the more satisfied he is. By the state of her apartment in DC, she needed the rest. He wouldn't have asked her to move back here with him if he didn't see her apartment there. He didn't expect to see any pictures of them, even though he knows she has some. Like the one of them in the Hampton's, which is one of her favorites. But to not have any pictures up at all, no tiny trinkets that he's had to pry the story out of, just an empty apartment with some furniture.

But she said that she wanted them to fight, and that she wasn't going anywhere. Maybe she's right. Maybe he was wrong to just walk out of her apartment after finding that boarding pass. But feeling as if she was going behind his back, going her own way again, leaving him behind, basically telling him that he wasn't all that important to her after all, it was just too much to look her in the eye and still see the woman he loves. A far cry from the woman who showed up at his door sopping wet, telling him something that he's never heard anyone in his life tell him before… that all she wanted was him.

Last night was incredible. Just another night where they only stopped because they were on the brink of exhaustion. They haven't done that since the night they spent together after that bomb scare. And if he were to ask her, last night topped that. He can still feel the doubt want to invade his system though. He wants to think he's done a good job of keeping it at bay, overall. On the way one from the airport last night was more of just making sure she knew what she was in for rather than just doubting that she wanted to go through with it.

But she's here, and she's promised that she's staying, that she loves him, and she's mentioned more than once their marriage, like it's certain it's going to happen someday. He can feel himself smile at the thought. The ring is still sitting in the back of his desk drawer, just waiting for the day when he's ready to try and give it to her again.

It's another couple of minutes after playing out a scene in his head of her actually accepting the ring that he feels her finally start to stir against him, drawing in a long breath while she gives her muscles a tired stretch before settling back down against him, letting out the breath, mumbling words as she does. "What time is it?" She tiredly asks.

He lets out a small chuckle of delight at the sound of her sleepy voice mumbling words as she has her face pressed into his chest. "Does it really matter?" He asks back, continuing to softly caress her shoulder.

She moans as the next breath gets let out, "I guess not." She mumbles again, taking in a few slow breaths, seemingly falling back asleep. "You sound awake." She says, still sounding as if she's losing the battle with sleep, wanting to draw her back in.

"I've been awake for a while." He says softly, voice just above a whisper, not wanting to wake her any more than he already has.

He can feel a smile press against his skin as it shines across her features. "You're watching me sleep again, aren't you?"

A can feel a boyish smile brighten his face, "I know you think it's creepy." He answers, turning down to her again, seeing her brunette curls splay out across his stomach, a smile still lighting up her face, her eyes still closed.

She pulls in a yawn, her limbs going taut as they stretch out across him, going limp a few seconds after and starts replying once she has the ability. "No, I think it's really sweet." She says on her long yawn, snuggling herself deeper into his side once she's done stretching, readjusting her head on his chest as she does, now awake. "What time is it, really?" She asks with a voice now void of sleep.

He turns his head and sees the clock, actually surprised at the time. "Almost eleven."

"Oh god." She laughs, turning her head into his chest, hugging his midsection. "What time did we end up falling asleep?"

"By the time we were done, I didn't even know if we were still on this plane of existence."

She laughs again, turning up to him with crinkled eyes and a tucked smile. "You know, I thought I forgot how good it feels to wake up next to you." He just smiles down to her, seeing her radiate with love. "I'm really glad I came back."

Then, their six month hiatus strikes in his mind and he chooses not to reply, just letting his head fall back down to his pillow silently. She said that she wanted them to fight, but that would mean ending this. But if he doesn't get this out, it will fester until it ruins this moment anyway.

"Hey." She calls, moving her hand to hug his midsection, pressing against his side. "Don't think I didn't notice that, Castle." She says sarcastically. He lifts his head back up, pushing up a smirk. "What is it?"

He sighs, then pushes himself up in bed, leaning back against the headboard while she falls to her back, looking up at him. It's a long moment of silence between the two of them, gathering his thoughts before he looks down to her again. "Why'd you hide the interview from me?"

It catches her off guard, he can tell, the way her smile fell into her biting her lip, the way her eyes tightened. She looks away, lets out a short breath, nods and starts to sit up. She obviously knew this was coming. "Well…" She starts, coming to sit up next to him against the headboard. She looks down and wrings her hands together, having trouble starting.

"Kate," He starts for her, and she looks over. "The most important thing you ever said to me wasn't 'I love you'." He admits, and she answers him with a softly raised brow. "It was what you said to me our first night together." Her tense expression softens into a warm smile, both of them thinking back to that magical night of theirs. "When you said that all you wanted was me, it…" He drifts off, feeling his heart pry itself open to her, but he trudges ahead. "No one has ever said that to me before. Everyone has always wanted something else out of me, but… when you said that all you wanted was me… I guess I'm just wondering what I did." Her brow raises just a bit more, her eyes widening, "… what changed."

Her head starts to shake and she reaches over, rolling onto her side and placing a hand on his arm. "No, Castle, that's not it. That's not it at all." She tells him, being sincere and heartfelt in her words. He just stares over at her, wanting a real explanation. She sighs again and sits back over to her side of the bed. "When Vaughn came in and… I mean, it shouldn't have been a problem for us." She says, looking over to him, and he feels hurt. She can obviously tell as she hastens to comfort him. "I'm not saying it was your fault, Castle, it was both of ours, okay? We didn't know where either of us stood, and it's probably more my fault for thinking it was all on you to give us a heading."

All he can do is draw in a deep breath, wanting to soothe himself. It doesn't work all that much.

She sighs again, looking down to the sheets with a creased brow. "It just felt like… I mean, we were having a really rough time, and when we started to drift apart, I-I panicked. I mean, our relationship wasn't just another casual thing to me, it was…"

"Something more." He finishes for her.

" _Yes._ " She agrees, tossing a hand forward. "And when it felt like it was falling apart…" Her voice is tight, high pitched as she rambles to explain herself. She closes her eyes and steadies herself, getting back on the tracks of her train of thought, taking it slow this time. "When I felt like it was falling apart, I did the one thing I've always done, and I looked for a way out. And when Stack offered me the interview…"

He's more hurt than angry. He feels he should be angry. It would be justified to be angry. But he's hurt that they drifted so far apart in those weeks that she felt the need to escape, that he let them drift apart so much.

"I was cowardly." She admits lowly. "I mean, they made that job sound like a great opportunity, and… at the time, with where we were, I convinced myself that it was worth it." He feels a slow, painful, aching stab of heartbreak jam itself into his chest. "But that was only because I thought that I was losing you anyway. I've never had a relationship before that I felt was worth fixing, so… I didn't know if I would be able to fix us."

"Kate…" He says softly, having her look over with a deeply arched brow and a sullen look, seeming lost. "I want to move past this." He tells her and grabs hold of the hand sitting next to his on the sheets. "I want to move on, focus on the future." She nods, calming herself by following the direction he's giving her. "But for that to happen… I need you to know that you can't be in this alone anymore. And if you're ready to make the promise that you're never leaving, then I need you to know that."

She softens her expression to him, accepting his explanation and pulls his hand up, placing a chaste kiss on the back of hit before she wipes it away with her thumb. "You know I love you, don't you?"

"Then it should be pretty easy, right?"

She smiles, surprising him by what he just said, and pulls herself over, planting a firm kiss on his lips.

* * *

They actually manage to get out of bed just twenty minutes before noon, after a five minute debate on whether to shower separately or not, and are moving out to the kitchen. Castle offers to make her something, but she declines, saying that she'll find something and doesn't want to keep him. He got a hold of Alexis and wanted to meet for lunch to let her in on the new living situation, and she doesn't want to make him late.

Alexis is the one hurdle she feels she might have difficulty with. But she's committed to this, and will work it out, with as much time invested as it takes. Their discussion this morning made her realize just how many mistakes she has to start paying for. She knows that it's in his nature to either forgive and forget, or just pretend like they never happened as long as it means just being with her. Proof that he just wants to love her, and if she really thought she were that selfish, she would just accept that.

But they need more of a foundation than that, a solid footing, a direct and open line of communication. She doesn't want him to just overlook the mistakes she makes, because she knows that she will make some more in the future, they both will. And when that happens, she doesn't want them to end up doing what they did before, sweep it away and cross their fingers in hopes it won't come up again.

He's slipping on a coat and is walking over to her to kiss her goodbye, lingering a lot longer for it to just be considered a normal goodbye kiss, and is out the door another minute later with a smile, leaving Kate to sit in one of the stools by the kitchen with a cup of coffee and her phone, looking up numbers for moving companies in DC. It's another silent few minutes before she hears a few soft, hesitant steps at the top of the stairs. "Hello?" Martha singsongs softly.

Kate laughs softly, "Hi Martha."

"Ah." Martha breathes, drifting effortlessly down the stairs with a warm smile. "And how is your first morning here treating you, dear?" She asks, coming into the kitchen.

"Great, actually." She chuckles, with her mug at her lips. "It was the first time I've slept in this late in a really long time."

"Well, trust me, Kathrine." Martha says, waving her hands in the air in her typical fashion and stands across the island from her. "You are about the best addition to this house that I and Richard could have hoped for." Kate smiles, Martha seeming annoyed that it took her son this long to get her back. "Where is that son of mine anyway?"

"He went to take Alexis out to lunch to bring her in on the situation. He wants to dispel any concerns she might have."

"I am sure Alexis will understand."

Something about Martha's wording sends warnings ringing in the back of her mind. "What do you mean?"

"Well, Alexis has had to go through a lot where her father is concerned. She's seen him on the low side of things more often than either of us would like. But I do know that she understands how happy you two make each other, so I'm sure that the news of your addition as a permanent fixture will only be taken as good news. And can only hope that you and Richard quit wasting your time while you still have time to waste."

Kate smiles, "We're getting there." She says with a confident nod. "We both still need some work, but… we're getting there." She nods again, feeling Martha's inherent motherly gaze pull her words out of her. She hasn't felt that kind of pull since her own mother. "Sooner than I expected actually." She adds with her eyes down onto her half empty mug.

Martha lets out a long breath and continues. "You know, Kathrine, if there's one thing I know about my son, it's that he has a very big heart." She can feel her own heart flutter, her spirit warmed, and her love for him grow just a bit more, because she's right. It's one of the many reasons she loves him so much. It never ceases to amaze her at the depths his heart can take. "And… he's had it broken more than once in the past."

"Yeah, he…" She hesitates, her mind going back and forth trying to find the right wording. He told her he never told that to anyone. "He told me what happened with Meredith."

She looks across the island to Martha, seeing her brow raised in shock. "Did he tell you… _everything_?"

She clearly knows, so she nods. "Yeah." She confesses, nodding her head. "He told me that too." She can feel her heart break for him, sending the same feeling through her as it did when she first heard it. The unbearable need to just go to him and wrap her arms around him, remind him that he's loved. She looks back up to Martha after a few seconds, seeing her shocked brow raised just a bit more.

"Really?" Kate nods silently. "He's never told that to anyone." She mutters, looking away. Martha lets her gaze fall away, her mouth hanging open in surprise, letting out a huff after a moment and smiling. "He never even told _me_ that."

"Really? Then… how'd you…"

"Oh, I know because he left the receipt for the ring he bought on the counter when he had me watch Alexis for the week. I don't even think he knows that I know." Martha lets her smile blossom as she looks over to Kate lovingly.

"What?" She asks lightly, Martha's smile infectious.

"My son has been looking for someone to give his whole heart to for a very long time, and has given up on his search more than once. And if there's one thing I know for certain, it's that he has always wanted one thing above all else, and that's always been to have a family. It's…" Martha drifts off, her voice tightening, "it was something that I was never really able to give him growing up." Her smile fades into a hard expression of soft hatred after a few seconds of silence between them, "I will never forgive that woman for what she did to my son or his family for as long as I live, Kathrine. What that horrid woman did devastated him, and was one of the things that made him never want to put his heart on the line like that ever again, but… if he told you that, then… it tells me that he's finally ready to put that big heart of his to good use again."

Kate lets out a long breath, still feeling the words being pulls from her. Maybe it's more her heart pushing the words out. "I love him, Martha… with all my heart, and… if I thought that we wouldn't be making a mistake, I would have said yes." She pauses, pushing back against the arched brow Martha is looking at her with. "I made a mistake when I left, but… if this six months has shown me anything, it's that there's a place in my life that he's made for himself, and it just isn't the same without him in it. It wasn't until he came back that he made me realize just how much I relied on him. I've told him all this, but… I know he still thinks I have reservations about moving in."

Martha smirks, "He told me to take it slow and give you as much space as you need to adjust."

Kate laughs and raises a hand to dismiss Castle's worries. "No, Martha, it's okay, you don't have to do that. I don't want to turn your whole world upside down or anything."

"Kathrine, I assure you, you make a lovely addition here." Martha says lovingly, patting Kate's hand that's sitting on the counter as she goes back upstairs.

Kate smiles, feeling at peace, content, and… at home as she scans the spacious loft with new eyes. She's always loved it here, and has always felt comfortable here. The way he opened it up to her without a second thought when that bombing made her homeless, and the time she spent here was one of their best times together. Now… this is her home.

And with his mother's blessing, and assurance that Alexis will be fine with it, she feels like she has a place here, like she has a home.

* * *

 _A/N: Something about the dialogue in the chapter felt a little off. Let me know though. Would be a great birthday present. :)_


	12. Chapter 12

Castle smiles at the waitress as she sets down two sodas on the table, waiting for Alexis to show.

He hopes that she's happy that Beckett has finally decided to move in, but is also aware enough to know she will be wary of it. She's been annoyed with him these past six months, with his moping around the loft as he nursed his broken hand. There were more than a couple nights where she had to force him to eat something. Just something about food while she was gone, it seemed tasteless, like he was only eating it because he knew he needed the calories.

The bell on the door chimes and he looks up, seeing his beautiful daughter grace her way through the door with a bright smile. He feels himself lighten at her presence and stands up, opening his arms. "Hi Dad." She chirps, burying herself in the opening of his coat, squeezing his midsection tightly, the way she always does when she hugs him.

"Hey pumpkin." He breathes, returning her hug. She squeezes him one last time before pulling back and moving to sit down.

"How was DC?" She asks naively, unwrapping her scarf from her neck and hanging it on the chair next to her.

He smiles to himself knowingly and flicks the straw around in his glass. "Well…" He begins, thinking of the happiness he gets from having her back, and that she's making a home with him, giving him hope again. "You know how I like to fantasize." He starts, leaning forward with focused eyes.

Alexis nods, sipping through her straw. "Yeah, why?"

"Well… while I was in DC, one of those fantasies actually managed to come true." Did it ever. Although, in his fantasy, something else happened when she knocked on his door, but they managed to get to that part last night. And he gives it away to his innocent daughter with the grin that just snuck onto his face as he looks down to the table.

"Am I going to regret asking what happened?" Alexis asks, clearly noticing her father's knowing look.

He raises his hand and shakes his head with a dismissive smile. "No, it's uh…" He starts, wanting to explain it to her. He looks back up with a softer smile and continues. "While I was in DC… Beckett actually came by my hotel." He pauses to gauge her reaction, but she just keeps her straw pressed tightly in her lips, her brow raising just a bit. "And…" Find the right words, "we talked."

Alexis gives a stiff nod and pushes her glass away. He's having trouble guessing what she's thinking. His own fault for having a complex daughter.

"And we agreed to give it another shot."

Alexis feigns surprise as she nods, he can tell she's playing along at this point. "Really?"

He just decides to continue, maybe she'll understand. "Mmhmm… we talked things through, and we both agreed to work on things…" He pauses to find the right words again, throwing out phrase after phrase in his mind, "until that day should come again."

Alexis just gives another nod as her brow lowers.

He's getting worried that she won't approve. And he knows Kate. If Alexis doesn't approve of this, it will send her straight out the door. "And until it does…" He braces himself, hardening his blood and his nerves for his daughter's reaction, "she's moved into the loft."

She blinks rapidly a few times before her head gives a double take, "Like… temporarily, er…"

"Well, I certainly hope not. I did ask her to move in with me." He tells her, hoping his humor will disengage her. And he still can't really tell which way she's leaning on this, all he can get is surprise. Her eyes just widened at him telling her that Kate's moved into the loft. "We spent the weekend together in DC, and I said that if we were going to work on our relationship, then we should be together while we do it. So I asked her to move back with me, and after some deliberation, she happily agreed."

Alexis seems to accept it, at the least, as she lets out a breath and looks down to the table. He can usually read his daughter, but she's keeping the scales too balanced to tell which way she's leaning.

"We're still working out some of the details, and I haven't told her this yet but I have a call into the Commissioner's office about getting her job at the Twelfth back, and… I'd… really like it if you were on board with this." He finishes hesitantly, mincing words, closing his throat for her reaction.

Alexis lets out a sigh and looks back up to him. "And you're sure she's staying this time?"

He gives it a moment, his hopeful side that she returned to him shining through. "While I'm sure she might still have some reservations about making such a big decision so last minute, she's said more than once that she doesn't plan on leaving again, and I believe her." And at this point, he honestly does believe that she will stay this time. If anything else, he has to believe in her and believe that she wants this to happen. If he doesn't at least have hope that she does, they're never going to get anywhere.

She just lets out another breath, her eyes down to the table as she gives him a slow nod in response.

"Alexis?" He prods, after she doesn't continue. She just looks back up to him, catching him off guard by a sullen look, and he jumps to cast it away. "Listen, sweetie, you know that you will always have a home at the loft. So if that's what this is about, then-"

"No, Dad, it's not." She says finally, raising a hand before folding her arms in against the table. She looks back down and takes a breath before speaking. "Dad, I know how happy Beckett makes you." He smiles warmly at that, both at the fact that at least his daughter knows how happy Beckett makes him, because sometimes it surprises even him, and too at the fact that yes, Beckett does make him happy. "And if she makes you happy, then I'm not going to stand in the way of that. But…"

He lowers his gaze, cautiously pulling more out of her, "…But?" He wants her to be honest, even if it hurts him. Sometimes she's the only person in his life that can be objective.

Alexis looks back over to her father, her brow softly arched. "While I have seen you at your happiest with Beckett… I have seen you at your worst when she leaves." That hits him with a soft thud, because he can't really deny that she's right. "And it's happened more than once. And this last six months was probably the worst." She says with a deep eye roll. "Having to… grind up pain pills in your food because you're too stubborn to take them on your own."

"What?!" He asks, a fatherly anger flashing in him.

She meets his challenge with an annoyed deadpan. "You broke your hand, Dad. And according to Dr. Parish, if I hadn't done that, it would still be healing."

"Alexis, I told you why I didn't want to take those." He sternly tells her, leaning forward and planting his palm flat against the table.

"I'm smart enough to know that's not why you refused to take them, Dad. So forgive me if I don't want to let you punish yourself by not taking standard pain medication for a broken hand." He's seen that look in Alexis's eyes before. And he knows what she's thinking. It makes him feel like he's failed her when she feels the need to raise him, instead of how it's supposed to be.

He hates thinking of that time in his life before he met Kate. He hates accepting that he was that person. But as for now, he just grits his teeth and shakes his head, wanting to move on.

"Dad," She starts again, "my point is…" She says on a small sigh, "if Beckett makes you happy, then I want you to be happy, but I don't want to see what it will do to you if she leaves again. And I don't want you to realize that she's living out the story of the stone-cutter."

He feels a smile tug onto his face at the mention of her favorite childhood story. "That was always your favorite story growing up." He interjects, thinking about telling that long story to her as a little girl.

"I hope I'm wrong, Dad. But… if you believe that she's committed to staying this time, then…" She nods off.

And he continues for her. "I think she is." He smiles, "We've been working really hard to get there, and…" He breathes out a laugh, thinking about what their future might look like after that conversation, "we've even talked about starting a family, so…" He drifts off, lost in another one of his fantasies about her telling him she's pregnant, and he isn't brought out of it until Alexis looks over to him with a bit of a weird look. "Does that… make you feel weird?"

But she just shakes her head, "No. I…" She smirks softly, "I kind of like the idea."

He feels his heart warmed that she's on board with this, that he doesn't have to worry about hurdling yet another bump in the road, and filled with hope that his daughter is behind this. "Me too."

"So… Beckett's really committed to this?" She reiterates.

And he nods slightly, "Well, she's working out the details of moving her stuff around, and I'm going to take some time to get it all integrated. I think she might feel as if she's just living there, though. I'm still trying to think of something to make her feel at home."

Alexis is slowly nodding, before she purses her lips, "Well, if you're sure she's staying… then I might have an idea."

* * *

"Castle, what are we doing up here? I just got home from a three hour meeting with the Commissioner." She wines as he pushes her down the upstairs hall. "Can't I relax for a minute?"

"Not before I show you something." He tells her, his hands on her arms as he urges her forward. She huffs in annoyance right before he stops her in front of the guest room.

She's happy that she's getting her job back, and that things are settling back down into normal. She's back on duty next Monday. But now, she just want to sit back down on the couch with him. She wants to enjoy these days off she has with him.

He lets out a short breath next to her ear as he runs his hands down her arms, "Now close your eyes."

She pushes a smile and turns back to look over her shoulder at him. "I don't want to close my eyes."

"Please?"

"Castle, last time you asked me to close my eyes, you ended up ruining a romantic walk on the beach by having me touch a dead fish."

"Hey, _that_ was funny. Your face was hysterical." He says with his boyish smile.

"So you see my point?"

"Okay, this is _really_ not how I saw this playing out in my head." He says, clenching his teeth. And with that, she decides to just cave. She'll deal with whatever it is he has planned, the quicker the better.

She waves her hands in the air and turns back forward. "Okay, fine." She closes her eyes, feeling him give her arms a soft squeeze, sensing him smile brightly in her ear before she feels him lean forward, and hears him open the door to the guest room. After hearing the door open, he urges her forward a few steps again, and she blindly fumbles forward, her hands out in front of her. She remembers the bed is pretty close to the door.

"Okay, open them."

She opens her eyes, feeling stunned at what she sees, not understanding what he did. The guest room is… empty. The furniture is gone, the closet is open and empty, the walls are bare, the hardwood floor is polished, and the room is completely empty. She doesn't understand what's going on, so after meandering into the room a few steps, she turns around back to him. She doesn't know why she feels a smile on her lips, maybe it's just his soft smirk that he's looking at her with, his hands casually tucked into his pockets. "What is this?" She asks on a tight whisper.

"Well," He starts and takes a step toward her, "everyone else has their space here. Mother and Alexis both have their rooms, I have my office, and now… you have yours." He says, coming to stand in front of her. "If, of course, that's what you decide to do with it."

She just looks across the empty room in, what she can only describe as loving denial.

"This is your room, Kate."

"Castle…" She fades off, looking over the expanse of the large guest room. "Did you think of this?"

He smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "While I would enjoy accepting the reward that comes along with taking full credit… it was actually Alexis's idea." She spins back around to face up in surprise, stunned that this wasn't all his idea. "She mentioned that there are certain people under this roof who can be a bit trying at times, and if you're going to be living here, you could use a space of your own." She just looks at him with a lowered brow and pursed lips. "What are you looking at me for, I'm talking about my mother."

She feels herself break in laughter before starting to shake her head, not wanting to accept this. She just moved in. "Castle… I-I can't have this, this is… this is your place, it's-"

"See? That…" He starts, coming up to her again and reaching for her, "is exactly why I did have to do this. Kate..." He softly starts, taking hold of her weak hands. All she can do is look back up to those loving blue eyes. "I didn't ask you to move in with me just to have you around all the time, or to… end that five minutes of bickering we do in the elevator over whose place we stay at that night." She feels herself fending off a smile. "I asked you to move in with me because I want you to have a home here, and… I want you to feel at home here. So you can do whatever you want to this room. It's yours, Kate."

She just felt herself fall for him just a little more. Even after opening up his home to her, he goes and pulls something like this.

"And…" He says, letting go her hands and turning toward the door, "as an added bonus," He continues as he moves toward the ajar door. He stops and turns around, standing in the doorway facing her, "I am not allowed in." He finishes and takes one step backward to put himself just past the threshold of the room… her own space. "Without your permission of course."

She stands in the middle of the empty room, feeling her heart explode at this gesture. She feels her smile split her face in two as she lifts her arms, beckoning him to her. He smiles and starts toward her, snaking his arms around her waist and pulling her in while she wraps her arms tightly around his neck. She can feel her heart flutter in her chest as he squeezes her. "I love you." She breathes in his ear.

He lets her go after a minute and smiles down to her. "Now," He starts, his hands softly roving her back, "I have a moving company on standby to empty out that storage unit you told me about of what you want, and as a bit of a housewarming to get the ball rolling," he lets her go and goes to the door, pulling on it and reaching behind to pull out a large picture frame with a reverent smile, "I got you this." He says and hands her the picture frame, and she feels her already fluffy heart warmed.

"Wow." She says, her smile overtaking her face again. The picture is of the two of them at his birthday party, both radiating with happiness as she smiles a bright, toothy smile and tugs herself into his side by his tie, heads set down against each other, depicting just how deeply they love each other. "That was a great night."

"Well, no one's ever cared about me that much to do what you did for me." She looks back up to him, seeing his eyes softly gazing over to her.

"And…" She breaks on a chuckle, "no one's ever cared about me this much either." She says, panning the room with the picture frame in her hands. She lets it fall to her side as she takes a step into his inviting presence, draping her arm over his shoulders. It's just a second later that she's sealing her lips against his.

* * *

 _A/N: If you don't know the story of the stone-cutter, it's a great story. Always felt it was relevant to her character._


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:*Tech difficulties forced me to repost this chapter. This is not a new chapter post.***

* * *

Kate makes her way up the stairs again, carrying another small box of mementos from the pile of cardboard lined up against the stairs. There's not much left, and not all of it's going into her office. There are a few pieces of furniture that are against the walls as she takes the time to have everything find its place. She might put her desk next to the window.

His gesture couldn't have been more thoughtful. It hadn't even crossed her mind that she might want a place to escape to when things get trying between them, because they will. She's just missed him too much to want to be apart from him. But now that she has claimed the room as her own after he gave it to her, she feels a new sense of being truly at home here, like she has a real place here, a real place in this families heart.

Her soft smile that's been teasing her lips all evening blossoms as she takes a step into the room, a few boxes against the wall, with her desk at an askew angle in the middle where the movers set it down, and an ottoman sitting against the wall with a set of shelves next to it. She takes in a deep breath and goes to her desk, setting the small box in her hands down and shoving her hands into the pockets of her coat, her knuckles finding that small felt box that's been biting at the back of her mind ever since she panicked and slipped it into her pocket.

It was a split second decision made the instant she heard his footsteps coming up behind her as she started to crack open the lid. She hasn't looked at it yet. Standing next to her askew desk in her future office space is the first time she's been all by herself since she moved in. She's found herself searching people out, most often Castle when she finds herself alone in a room. But now, she feels her fingers wrap tightly around the small felt box that's been sitting in her pocket for two days.

She looks over her shoulder toward the open door, listening intently for a few seconds for noises nearby. Castle has been home for about an hour after going with her to her storage unit and is downstairs, moving a few things around in their bedroom, making space for her own things. He urged her to go have fun arranging her own space up here, and will come get her when Alexis stops by for dinner, one of the nights that he forces her to eat at home.

After not hearing anything, she pushes a hard breath and going to stand at the edge of her desk in front of the open box of mementoes. She pulls out the small box with slight guilt and caution and holds it in her hands for a moment, a war waging inside her. She's been trying to remember what the ring looked like, but she can't for the life of her remember. All she remembers is seeing him down on one knee holding what she knew was a ring. She never even looked at it. She should just put it back where she found it, or at the very least tell him that she picked it up. They're supposed to be telling each other things now.

With her heart in her throat, her hands give in, and in one quick motion, she flicks open the lid, her breath stealing itself from her. As her eyes find the dance of the diamonds, she feels paralyzed. It's beautiful. It's-

"Beckett?" A soft voice cuts in behind her.

In another quick motion, she wipes herself of soiled emotion the best she can, flicks the lid to the small felt box closed, shoving it down into the box in front of her as she turns around, finding Alexis standing in the doorway. She smiles and steps away from the box, waving the girl in. "Hey Alexis."

Alexis smiles warmly and steps inside, her eyes giving the room a quick once over. "Dad said I could find you up here."

Kate nods and tries her best to put the sight of the ring out of her mind, wanting to honestly talk to Alexis. "Yeah, it's uh…" She starts, turning around and going over the mishap of boxes and furniture lining the walls, "it's still a bit of a work in progress." The pair chuckle between themselves for a moment before Kate starts to feel her mind give her a push. "Thank you." She says honestly, meeting Alexis's eyes. "When he told me this was your idea…" She nods off, not being able to find the right words.

Alexis saves her with a nod, "Well, everyone needs a place they can escape to, especially living here."

Kate smiles, being somewhat nervous around Alexis. Castle told her that she was onboard with this, but Castle is still her father, and he's put himself through a hell of a lot on her account. Her heart is tugging at her, giving her a quick, hard jerk, telling her to just be open with her, end the awkwardness that is sinking in between them. "Listen… Alexis…"

Alexis just meets her with a wondering gaze, and she trudges forward.

"I know that I've messed up, but… I want you to know that I'm committed to making this work."

Alexis just nods stiffly in response, looking away for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "You know, I don't remember much from when my mom left, and… I never really saw Gina that way so it didn't really affect me as much as it probably should, but… I remember what they did to him." Kate feels her heart squeeze at that. "After him and Gina split up, he changed. He was still my dad… but it's almost as if he gave up. I was only about thirteen when it happened, so I had to learn to sort of… fend for myself pretty early. But I've seen how he is with you."

And that unclenches her heart after it was squeezed by what Castle's divorces had not only done to him, but done to her in turn.

"You make him happy, and I know what he's like when he loses someone he loves. It's almost like I have to raise him." She mumbles, shaking her head and looking away.

And Kate once again feels her heart tug, the need to relate… because she can. "Yeah." She says confidently, garnering Alexis's attention. "You don't want to, you know that you shouldn't have to, but you… do it anyway because you're all he has, and he's all you have, so you… do what you can to make sure he makes it to the next day." She looks back up to Alexis after her mind gets lost in memory, and clarifies. "After my mom died, my dad turned to alcohol pretty hard. It took… years for me to get him back on his own two feet and I still worry about him sometimes, but… I understand, Alexis."

"He's been the happiest I've ever seen him the time he's been with you…" Kate feels a smile push itself onto her face, "but he's been at his worst when you left."

That hits her hard, sending a cold, sharp stab of guilt, shame, and heartbreak wracking quickly through her system. But she forces it to stay inside as Alexis continues.

"And if you two do end up getting married, then I'll do what I can to support it. But…" She says, and Kate can almost hear her voice shake. Kate's taking a step toward her and reaching out before she knows it. "I don't want to see what divorcing you will do to him."

Kate can feel her heart shake, sending a wave up her throat, but she closes it off and sends it back down, making it just go down her arms instead, her blood chilling inside her veins. "Alexis, if I thought we wouldn't be making a mistake, I would have said yes when he proposed. If I thought that we could just up and get married to fix our problems like I know he wanted to, then I would have said yes. But I love him too much to do it the wrong way."

Alexis seems to soften and come back from the thought of losing her dad to the heartbreak she would lay upon him.

"I made a mistake when I left. But if our time apart has shown me anything, it's that I need him more than I was ever aware of. And we've been talking a lot, and we've been making a lot of headway in fixing our mistakes, and I know that he still thinks that I'm just saying this, but I promised him that I wasn't going to leave again, and… just like I promised him that I would say yes when he asked me again, I'm not going to renege it."

Alexis smiles a soft smile and Kate can see her eyes brighten, which makes her smile a tucked smile in return. "Well… if Dad believes in you, then I guess I do too."

She feels something inside her click, like everything is looking like it's falling into place. Before she realizes it, she has Alexis wrapped in a tight hug, and is surprised when she feels it being returned. As she rubs the girls back tenderly, and it isn't until she feels eyes on her that she opens them to see him standing in the door way, looking at the two of them with a warm, loving, tender smile. She feels her chest warmed, a love she's never felt before exude from her heart as they separate. "Hey." Kate breathes, greeting him.

The pair look over to him with smiles as he quirks his brow. "You two hungry?"

* * *

She stirs, her body sloshing from side to side as her arm reaches over for him, being pulled out of sleep when she doesn't feel him, her hand pressing into the warm spot his body left on his side of the bed. She lifts her head, her hazy vision looking through the cracked door to their bedroom, seeing an orange light flicker in his office.

Despite being tired, and looking over to the clock seeing it's the dead of night, just after one in the morning, she smiles, knowing what he's doing. She flips the covers off and stands up, grabbing her robe off the chair in the corner as she pads her way out of their bedroom, pushing the door open gently, smiling at what she sees. With a soft smile playing across the lips that just a few hours ago she went to bed devouring, leaned back in his office chair, a candle lit on the edge of his desk, his laptop open on his lap, his fingers dancing across the keys, it's a sight she's missed. She folds her arms with a smile, "Hey." She calls softly.

He looks over to her with a raised brow, the clacking of the keys coming to a stop. "Hey. Did I wake you?" He asks as he leans forward.

She's quick to dismiss his fear. "No, I just reached for you in bed and didn't feel you, so…" He smiles and keeps his eyes on her for a second as he continues typing. She watches him intently for a minute before her desire to talk to him outweighs the guilt she would feel for stopping him. "Midnight inspiration strike?"

He smiles brightly again against the light of his screen, continuing to type. "Yeah, I had a dream about you." She squeezes herself with her arms at that, seeing him turn toward her, pointing a finger to his temple then to his screen. "Wanted to get it down while I still had it."

"Hope it's not anything too embarrassing." She cracks.

He just smirks and keeps his eyes down on his keys. "You have nothing to fear, Beckett."

She smiles and nods to herself as a silence falls over them, the soft click of his fingers going across the keys the only sound in the entire loft. "Well, I'll leave you to it." She says, turning back toward their bedroom.

"No, I'm almost done. Come on." He says, closing his laptop and setting it on the desk next to the lit candle, now making soft shadows dance across his handsome features. "Come sit with me." He beacons, sliding his chair out just a little and inviting her over with his soft, gracious smile. She feels his warmth engulf her as she pushes off the door jam and pads her way over to him, turning and sitting down in his lap, draping an arm across his shoulders while he wraps an arm across her back, softly cuddling her side and reaching for her free hand, starting to absentmindedly fiddle with her fingers.

"It's amazing." She cuts through the comfortable silence after a few minutes of just sitting contently. He looks over to her, and she's briefly taken aback by the look in his eye, the sparkle. "Just a week ago, we thought we'd never see each other again." He just blinks, the same soft, content, gracious, warm smile playing across his lips, his eyes gleaming in the light of the candle on his desk. "Now look at us."

"Well, what do you expect from soulmates?"

She smiles and breathes a chuckle despite herself. "Soulmates? You would believe in that kind of thing."

"The romantic in me does. I mean, it does make for a pretty good story. Two people defying all odds, overcoming all obstacles and living happily ever after." He tells her, still blindly fumbling with her fingers, as he always does when they've sat like this. "And another part of me likes to think that whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me."

She bends over in soft laughter, their voices soft and easy in the midnight quiet of the loft. "We're not even engaged yet, and I'm already stuck with you?"

"I never said I couldn't make it worth your while." He smirks.

She softens just a bit more at that. She feels his pulling gaze draw her in, magnetic, the gleam captivating her. Her lips push a smile as she reaches up, her fingers teasing his jaw and her thumb softly caressing his cheekbone.

"What?" He asks, his hand finding her thigh.

"That look in your eye." She says, her eyes dancing between his. "It's like… you're…"

"In love?" He finishes for her, and she smiles brightly, silently nodding. "Well, that's because I am, Kate."

She caresses his cheek one last time before she sniffles, not knowing where it came from, and puts her hand against his chest. "You have a big heart, Castle." She compliments, gently rubbing his chest. "It's the thing I've always loved most about you."

"So it's not just my roguish good looks?" He cracks.

"That's a bonus." She cracks back, making them both silently chuckle. "No, it's… you've stood by me in what I thought were the last minutes of my life… more than once and you didn't even bat an eye. You've…" She fights the rising tide of emotion, "always had hope that we could be something more… something amazing, and… I've always been the one that's fought against it. But now that we're here, I don't see how I ever justified fighting it for as long as I did."

He lets out a short breath and gently tugs her to him a bit more with his hand hugging her side and his other arm going over her legs, his hand softly grasping the outside of her thigh, his fingers pinching the silk of her pajamas. "Kate…" He starts, pausing until she looks down to him, feeling the dam start to break on her eyes. "All my life, I've felt like I've never been enough for anyone. It started from the day my mother sent me off to boarding school. And all my life, I've been searching for someone who I could give my whole heart to. And after trying and failing several different times… I decided to give up. After things fell apart with Gina, I thought that I'd never find that person."

She can feel her heart constrict at what he's telling her, like he's hugging her to him the way he is out of fear she'll leap out of his lap and run out the door at any second. So she soothes his chest a bit deeper and starts to rub his back with her hand she has draped across his shoulders.

"Every time I've decided to try and give my whole heart to someone, that's usually the moment that they decided to cut and run. So… after three failed attempts… I gave up, and became a person that I don't like when I look back on it now. I know the kind of person I was before I met you, Kate. It's a time in my life that I look back on, and can barely recognize myself now. And it happened purely by accident, but eventually, I started to find myself trying again."

She can feel her heart flutter and flip-flop in her chest at his words. He's never said anything like this to her before. He's never bared his soul this openly and honestly to her before.

"And you were right." She raises a brow, her hand pressing against his chest a little more, "You were absolutely right. I didn't have any faith in myself after deciding that I was never going to find the love of my life and just gave up thinking that I could ever have that. Because the only common denominator was me. And yes, I did always have hope that we could be something amazing, but I wasn't ready to lose that by doing the one thing that's always been the cue for everyone else to find the nearest exit."

She feels her tears finally leak out onto her cheeks as she reaches up and soothes over his cheek again with her thumb. "I never should have left, Rick."

But he shakes his head softly and takes her hand, "You did something that no one else has, Kate." She feels her heart unclench as he entwines their fingers together. "You came back."

She sniffles again, a sad smile shining across her face.

"So, if you want to know what that look in my eye really is… it's from the fact that I've finally found the person I've been searching all my life for. You're still here, and… to me… that's enough to give me hope that you always will be."

She tries her best to wrangle in her emotions to where she can speak clearly, but it takes a few steadying breaths, having to fend off more the need to just kiss him. But she needs to tell him something just as meaningful. "Rick…" She starts, roving her hand over his chest and her other into his hair. "You should know better than anyone how hard it is for me to admit that I need something. But… I've seen what my life is like now without you in it, and it's enough to prove to me once and for all that I need you. These past six months living without you have been… the worst. And," She breathes another sad chuckle, "all it took was seeing a cardboard cutout of you to send me on a tailspin. The night before I came to your hotel, I had just come home and it hit me just how empty it was, how empty my life was without you. I… never thought that I would end up depending on someone as much as I do you. You've taught me a lot of things, Castle, but I don't think I can ever repay you for giving me the kind of hope that you give me. You _are_ the love of my life, Rick, and… I just wish there was a way to give you the kind of proof that you've given me to show you that I mean it."

He just smiles, that same sparkle twinkling in his eye as he reaches up and brushes the back of his fingers across her cheek, his warm touch pulling her in. "You're still here, so… I'd take that as proof enough."

She feels her breath sucked out of her, and she reaches up, putting her hand on his jaw, quickly drawing herself to his lips. The kiss is emotional, firm, body crawling, kissing him just for the need to pour out her emotions in the simple act. He lets her go after a long few seconds and she rests her forehead down against his. "I'll always love you, Castle."

He pulls back lifting one side of his brow, his eyes still dancing over to her, "Always?"

She smiles, knowing what that word, that promise means to them, "Always."


	14. Chapter 14

It's bright the next day, unseasonably warm, and softly quiet around the loft.

It's late in the morning as he finds himself sitting at his desk again. After a morning spent with his mother and Kate over breakfast, laughing, poking fun, stories, and a genuine sense of family and togetherness that he hasn't felt in a lifetime, and the fact that he sensed it most of all from the woman he plans to marry someday is what has him questioning their timeline.

They still have work to do. Mistakes to fix, talks to have, apologies to soothe over, problems to rectify, and he's taking each step as they come, hopefully in stride as they move over each one faster than he anticipated. But last night made him certain that they will get there. He told her about his insecurities, his fears, and he still had to pry himself out from underneath her tight, selfish grasp when he woke up this morning. If anything, telling her all those things made that grasp tighter.

And the dream didn't help his patience about this any either. Dreaming of how radiant and beautiful she will look on their wedding day, if and when it comes, then not being able to speak, his voice literally not working as she took his hands and went to recite his vows, got him thinking. He didn't want to tell her that what he was writing when she found him were his vows, different rough drafts of what he would want to say to her on that day, wanting to whittle it down to a certain, small set of things about her and promises he wants to make to her that will actually mean something.

Because if he doesn't keep it small, he will end up writing for the rest of his life things he wants for them, things he loves about her and what she's done for him.

Then that got him thinking about what he will eventually do as the proposal, when he asks her again, knowing she'll say yes but still feeling terrified about asking her. He could actually put some real planning to it this time, like he did the ring. He spent hours on the ring, and having her meet him at those swings did seem… meaningful in the least, the writer in him searching for the poetic subtext where there probably wasn't any.

But now, sitting in the muffled silence of the loft, his mother fluttering around in the kitchen, Kate upstairs with a box of nails, hanging pictures and arranging everything to make it a home away from home, which is just what he was hoping to give her. And that she's taken it and is making an active effort to make it just that, to settle her things down, to take the time to make sure everything finds the right place, it tells him that she wants to and means to keep her promises.

He feels his smirk grow into a smile as he spins around in his office chair, his hand grabbing the handle of his desk drawer and pulling it open, starting to rummage through the dishevel of pens, paperclips, remotes, and papers to find that small box that's sat in here since he went in search for it after rocketing it across the loft that day. As his hand pushes the junk in his drawer around, his brow knots and he leans forward in his chair.

It must be in the other drawer somewhere.

So he pulls open the next drawer down and pushes the folders back and forth, not finding it but not knowing why he would in the file drawer, and then goes to the other side of his desk, pulling open the top drawer where he keeps mostly old cell phone chargers and USB cables, and the remote control to an RC helicopter that he still needs fixed. It was right here. "Where is it?" He asks out loud to nobody.

Maybe it was in a drawer in the kitchen. He shoots out of his office chair and is whisking his way into the kitchen, panicked. He can't lose that ring. He annoyed the jeweler far too much that day and wouldn't give him the time of day now, not after he bugged him as much as he did. "Where is it, where is it, where is it?" He chants to himself as he shoots past his mother and over to the junk drawer in the corner, pulling it open to find nothing but batteries, misplaced colored pencils, thumbtacks, a flashlight, and that rubber band ball he made a few weeks ago.

"Where is what, dear?" His mother asks him, still fluttering around the kitchen.

"The ring." He steps over to another drawer.

"What ring?"

" _The_ ring… mother." He hisses, not wanting Beckett to know that he's looking for it this soon. "Beckett's engagement ring. I had it in a drawer in my office and now I can't find it." Until a thought occurs to him. He stops his panic for a moment as he leans against the island, his eyes closing, "Please don't tell me you took it to try and fool your friends into thinking you got engaged, Mother."

"Okay, now I am insulted, Richard. What on earth makes you think I would do that?"

He turns to his mother, giving her a deadpan look, knowing her nightlife antics far better than he should. "Well, it's not in my drawer. So unless Alexis took it-"

"Oh, Richard." His mother waves him off. "Don't you remember?"

"Remember what?"

She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "You had gotten into that scotch of yours and you were sitting in your office the night before your flight to DC, brooding and fantasizing about what might happen should you run into Kathrine on your trip, and you had the ring out, and you left it sitting out on your desk."

"So you _did_ take it." He concludes, the memory of that night briefly flitting into his mind.

"No, I didn't take it."

"Well then who did?"

"Well… isn't it possible that Kathrine might have happened upon it?"

It strikes him as a possibility, but… no, she wouldn't have just taken it. She would have at least told him that she found it. "No… no, she would have told me."I

* * *

In what is slowly becoming her home office, she sits down in her chair and pulls herself back over to her desk, that's now sitting just off center of the room, facing the right wall so she has a view of both the window and the hall so she isn't blindsided should anyone come knocking. With the large picture that he gave her sitting in the right corner, she places the smaller one of her own in front of it, one of them on one of their few trips up to the Hampton's, sitting in a stone corner of an outdoor barbeque. She loves the way his eyes are tightly squeezed closed against her kissing his temple.

Maybe she could talk him into going up there this weekend, before she's back at the precinct on Monday.

There's still boxes that need unpacked, mostly of much less entertaining, menial office things. She's been focused on the fun stuff so far; pictures, memories, pieces of the happy times in her past that he knows all about. She wants to leave some room, space to fill with new memories of their life together, their engagement, eventually their marriage… their family. She feels a smile bloom across her face as she looks over the space.

Her eyes find the small box she's been working out of for the past ten minutes and stands up, walking over to the small ottoman that's against the wall behind her desk and sits down on top of it, next to the open box that's slowly being emptied, her hand finding the small box that's been hiding here since Alexis almost caught her with it.

Caught her with it. She really needs to put this back before he goes looking for it. She's actually surprised that he hasn't already. She thought it would be the kind of thing he would daydream over constantly. But… they've been busy lately, she smirks.

She pushes out a small breath and flicks the lid open without reservation, a smile glowing across her face at the sight of the diamonds again. It's beautiful, it's elegant, it's… something she could wear for the rest of her life. Her lip falls in between her teeth at the thought. She looks upward, contemplating for only a few seconds with the box clasped in her hands before she gives in.

It's not lost on her. This is something that he is supposed to put on her finger, that he's supposed to give her, that he's supposed to offer her right after he tells her that he loves her. But… she feels like a little girl dreaming about her wedding now. She breaks, tugging the ring out of the folds of the box and sets it down beside her, the ring now being held gingerly in her fingers.

She can't help but be dazzled at the dance and sparkle of the diamonds as she rolls the band around in her fingers. She holds up her left hand, her eyes flicking between the ring and the finger it's supposed to adorn. She lets out all her breath and gives in to the desire, knowing what it's going to feel like when it's all over with. But right now, the want and pull is enough to make her want to deal with the consequences when they come.

She holds out her left hand and slowly, nervously, and shakingly starts to push it onto her finger. She feels her smile split across her face as she feels the snug… the perfect fit of the band around her finger, her eyes quickly finding the ring on her finger and seeing what it looks like on her. Everything about this is perfect. If she had actually taken a few seconds to look at the ring, it would have been a hell of a lot harder to say no.

It even fits perfectly.

Her bottom lip gets bit between her teeth again as her eyes can't turn away from the ring wrapped guiltily around her finger, all her attention raptured onto the sparkle. "I hope it fits."

His voice slams her, blowing away the feeling in an instant as she looks up with scared, wide eyes, her fingers tugging the ring off as fast as she can and tightly squeezing it in her hand, looking up at him as he stands in the doorway with his hands casually in his pockets, a soft smile playing across his lips. "Castle… I-I uh…"

He shakes his head a bit and cranes his neck, stepping off the door jam and slowly making his way toward her as she stands up. "I guess we still have to work on you telling me things."

Her breath is sucked out of her as she rolls the ring into her fingers and looks down at it again for a moment before looking back up to him. "I-I didn't mean to steal it, I just saw it sitting on your desk, and…" She fades, waving the ring about in front of her nervously.

He just chuckles, "You can't steal something that's already yours, Kate." He… isn't annoyed, mad, even let down that she already saw it and put it on. His reaction is coming straight out of left field, and she doesn't know how to handle this exactly. And he can clearly tell. "It's yours, Kate. Just because you didn't take it when I offered it to you doesn't really change that."

She lets out a breathy laugh, a smile going across her lips for a moment as she feels herself relax against not being guilty of anything. She nods and lets her eyes fall back down to the ring being rolls round on her fingers. "I guess I didn't see it that way."

There's a moment of silence between them, both of them looking down at the ring in her fingers. She doesn't know why she's so attached to this already. He hasn't even asked her yet. "So you like it?"

She looks up with a smile and silently nods, her eyes falling back down to the gorgeousness of the stones as soon as they can. "Yeah, it's… it's gorgeous, Castle. It's…" She smiles and remembers the thought, looking up to him again. "It's exactly the kind of thing I could see myself wearing for the rest of my life." He smiles at that, that loving light in his eyes shining as brightly as the stones in her hand, which her eyes find after a few seconds. She chuckles, "It even fits perfectly." She looks back up to him, seeing pride leak into his smile. "How'd you know?"

He shakes his head dismissively. "You're going to think it's stupid."

"Oh, well you have to tell me then." She kids.

"Well…" He sighs, "I've spent so long absentmindedly playing with your fingers, I thought that if I felt the size, I would know it when I felt it, so… I spent about… an hour and a half playing with the jeweler's set of sizing rings before I finally picked one. And that was after I spent an hour playing goldilocks with the settings, trying to figure out something that seemed... you."

She feels her heart flutter, her love rippling through her in waves. "You did that?" If she had known that, she wouldn't have said no. He sheepishly smiles with another shake of his head. If she had known he was that thoughtful… for her… She shakes her head and looks back down at the ring, growing more and more attached to it with every ray of light that sparkles off of it. But then she remembers that it's not really hers yet. They need to do this right. "But you should…" She starts, the words feeling bile in her throat, "…probably hang onto it." She says, her hand weakly lifting up and handing him the ring. "You know, until we're ready."

He pauses for a moment before he takes the ring from her brings it close to him. She doesn't know why, but it feels like she just got a piece of her soul ripped out. The thought he put into the ring, the perfection of the ring itself… the room he's given her, the home he's opened up to her, that big heart of his that he finally opened up completely to her… "Although…" She starts, "I did promise I'd say yes if you asked me again." His eyes find hers again, wide and surprised as he gently rolls the ring in his fingers as she did. She looks back up to him and feels certain. "I like to try and keep my promises."

He rolls his jaw and nods his head, "Well… if I were…" He softly says, his voice low and gruff, "I wouldn't want it to be just because of the ring."

She shakes her head, her eyes now unable to look away from him. "Well, not just the ring. I-it would be the thought you put into it, and… the room, and the picture, and… and what we said to each other last night." She wants to just yell at him, grab him and end the subtext they're falling into. "And the night before that."

He nods again with a raise of his brow, "Well…" He starts again, "if I were, then I'd… want it to be something big… something you'd remember." His voice is so uncertain, so scared, "Give you a story to tell those kids you said you wanted someday."

She feels her heart soften, "I'd remember… and we can always just embellish a little with the kids, if need be."

He laughs breathlessly, his smile overtaking his face for a second, his eyes still down on the ring pinched in his fingers. "I'd still want it to be big."

She shakes her head. "I already told you I prefer something intimate, Rick."

He nods stiffy again, his shoulders relaxing and his smile softening. He looks back up to her, that same sparkling gleam in his bright, blue eyes shining over to her. "In that case…"

Her heart slams into her throat as her body tenses, watching with racing blood as he slowly kneels down, his eyes never leaving hers, lifting the ring up to her again.

"Kathrine… Houghton Beckett…" She's going to faint if he doesn't grab her up quickly. "Will you marry me?"

Her answer comes as quickly as it can tumble from her lips. "Yes."

* * *

 **END**

 _A/N: Hope it was a satisfying ending._

Have another story planned, and this time, I did try and look one up that followed this prompt and couldn't find one. But if you know any stories that rewrite the last thirty seconds of Knockout (3x24), then feel free to send them to me. Other than that, I've had a lot of fun, and have too many scenes written in my head to let this other idea go. Thanks for reading. :)


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